New Delhi: With a rise in food and vegetable prices, consumer inflation rose to 2.92 per cent in April as against 2.86 per cent in March, even though it remained well within the Reserve Bank of India’s medium-term target of 4 per cent.
By the government data released on Monday, food inflation accelerated to 1.10 per cent in April from 0.30 per cent in March this year.
Vegetable prices grew 2.87 per cent while overall food and beverages inflation stood at 1.38 per cent.
The RBI, which monitors consumer inflation to formulate its monetary policy, last month decided to reduce the repo rate by 25 basis points to 6 per cent— a level last seen in May 2018.
Rating agency Crisil said it expects headline inflation to rise 60 bps to 4 per cent in 2019-20 from 3.4 per cent in 2018-19.
Retail inflation was lower than 2.97 per cent expected by more than 40 economists in a poll by news agency Reuters. It is expected that modest inflation and growing concern over growth may force the RBI to go for another round of rate cut in June.
