Food and fuel prices push India's retail inflation in October

Food and fuel prices pushed India's annual retail inflation rate higher in October, official data showed on Monday.

According to the data furnished by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation, October's consumer price index (CPI) inflation rose to 3.58 per cent from 3.28 per cent reported for September.

However, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the CPI inflation last month was lower than 4.20 per cent recorded in October 2016.

The overall food prices, as gauged by the Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI), rose to 1.90 per cent during the month under review from 1.25 per cent in September 2017.

The YoY CPI in urban areas ruled higher at 3.81 per cent, while in rural India it rose by 3.36 per cent.

As per the ministry's data, retail inflation on a YoY basis edged higher due to a rise in the prices of food items like vegetables, milk-based products, cereals, meat and fish.

The data on a YoY basis showed that vegetables in October became costly by 7.47 per cent, while prices of milk-based products rose by 4.30 per cent.

Other notable categories such as cereals became dearer by 3.68 per cent and meat and fish recorded a rise of 3.12 per cent.

Sub-category of food and beverages during the month under consideration recorded a rise of 2.26 per cent over the same period last year.

Among non-food categories, the "fuel and light' segment's inflation rate accelerated to 6.36 per cent in October. - IANS