Reduced food prices bring down retail inflation to 25-month low

Retail inflation for February declined to a 25-month low of 8.10 percent against 8.79 percent in the previous month, helped by reducing food prices, government data showed Wednesday.

Food inflation for February declined to 8.57 percent compared to 9.9 percent in the previous month.

The corresponding provisional inflation rates for rural and urban areas for February 2014 are 8.51 percent and 7.55 percent respectively. Inflation rates for rural and urban areas for January 2014 were 9.35 percent and 8.09 percent respectively, the data stated.

Industry body Confederation of Indian Industry director general Chandrajit Banerjee said the decline of the CPI-based inflation should spur the Reserve Bank of India to give a predominance to growth and cut interest rates in its forthcoming monetary policy."

"Reduction in food inflation is always good news. It helps us to maintain our household budgets. Otherwise, with spiralling costs of our food items, it becomes very difficult to stay within our budget," homemaker Sunayana Kumar told IANS.