Inflation drops to 10-month low in March, but no relief on food bills yet

India's retail inflation eases to 4.85% in March, but food inflation remains high, posing challenges for rate cuts.

India’s retail inflation moderated to a ten-month low of 4.85% in March from 5.1% in February, but food inflation remained sticky at 8.52%, little changed from the 8.66% recorded in the previous month as price rise accelerated in cereals and meat, while vegetables, pulses, spices and eggs remained in double-digit inflation.

While inflation for urban consumers cooled significantly from 4.8% in February to 4.14% in March, rural consumers had it harder as they experienced a slightly higher inflation of 5.45% in March compared with 5.34% in the previous month.

This trend was visible in the extent of food price rise as well, as it accelerated from 8.3% in February to 8.6% in March for rural India, while the food inflation for urban consumers dropped from 9.2% in February to 8.35% last month.

On a month-on-month basis, there was no change in the Consumer Price Index but the food price index inched up about 0.2% and economists reckoned that the ongoing heat wave could spike food inflation in coming months. Even as crude oil prices are firming up and an inflation spike in the US may delay hopes of interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, sticky food inflation at home could further dampen prospects of rate cuts from India’s central bank.

While March’s inflation rate is still aloof from the bank’s stated 4% target, average retail price rise in the last quarter of 2023-24 has been 5.01%, in line with the 5% average projected by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

The RBI, which last week called Inflation the elephant in the room that needs to return to the forest for good, expects retail inflation to ease to an average 4.5% this year from the 5.4% clocked in 2023-24. The ongoing April to June quarter is, however, expected to see an average inflation of 4.9%, as per the RBI.

Within the food basket, vegetables’ inflation cooled marginally from the seven-month high of 30.25% in February to 28.3% last month. A similar easing was recorded in pulses, whose prices rose 17.7% in March from 18.5% in February, eggs (up 10.33% from 10.7%), sugar (up 7.25% compared with 7.5% in February.