July retail inflation cools to 9-month low of 4.17% on smaller increases in prices of vegetables, fruits

New Delhi: Retail inflation fell to a nine-month low of 4.17 percent in July on account of a slowdown in the prices of vegetables and fruits, said government data released on Monday. Based on Consumer Price Index (CPI), inflation for June has also been revised downwards to 4.92 percent from the earlier estimate of 5 percent, as per the Central Statistics Office (CSO) data released on Monday. [caption id=“attachment_4258303” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image.. AFP.[/caption] Its previous low was in October 2017 at 3.58 percent. As for year-on-year comparison, retail inflation had increased by 2.36 percent in July last year. The CSO data revealed that inflation in vegetables declined by (-) 2.19 percent last month, compared to 7.8 percent in June. The rate of price rise in fruits slowed down 6.98 percent, as against over 10 percent in the previous month. As per the data, the inflation in protein-rich items like meat and fish, and also milk was also slower in July compared to the previous month. However, inflation in the ‘fuel and light’ segment based on the changes in the CPI increased to 7.96 percent from 7.14 in the previous month. The prices for the data are collected from selected towns by the Field Operations Division of NSSO and from selected villages by the Department of Posts. Price data are received through web portals, maintained by the National Informatics Centre.