July inflation slows to 9-month low of 4.17 per cent

Retail inflation fell to nine-month low of 4.17 per cent in July on account of slowdown in 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 per cent from the earlier estimate of 5 per cent, as per the Central Statistics Office (CSO) data released on Monday.

Its previous low was in October 2017 at 3.58 per cent.

As for year-on-year comparison, retail inflation had increased by 2.36 per cent in July last year.

The CSO data revealed that inflation in vegetables declined by (-) 2.19 per cent last month, compared to 7.8 per cent in June.

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The rate of price rise in fruits slowed down 6.98 per cent, as against over 10 per cent 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 per cent from 7.14 in the previous month.

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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.