Uptick in food prices push retail inflation to 5.59 pc in Dec: Govt data

Retail inflation rose to 5.59 per cent in December, mainly due to an uptick in food prices, government data showed on Monday.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation was 4.91 per cent in November 2021 and 4.59 per cent in December 2020.

As per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO), food inflation rose to 4.05 per cent in December this fiscal compared to 1.87 per cent in the preceding month.

The Reserve Bank, which mainly factors in the retail inflation while arriving at its bi-monthly monetary policy, expects the inflation print to be somewhat higher over the rest of the year as base effects turn adverse.

According to the RBI, it is expected that headline inflation will peak in the fourth quarter of the current fiscal and soften thereafter.