NEW DELHI: Kerala had the highest inflation rate among states, while Telangana had the lowest rate in Feb, latest data showed, highlighting that price pressures continue to persist in some of the larger states.
Kerala recorded an inflation rate of 7.3% in Feb, followed by Chhattisgarh at 4.9%, Karnataka at 4.5%, Bihar at 4.5% and Jammu & Kashmir at 4.3%. Telangana had the lowest retail inflation at 1.3%, followed by Delhi at 1.5% and Andhra Pradesh at 2.4%. Of the 22 states, 13 had inflation rates below the Reserve Bank of India’s target of 4%, the data showed.
Price rise in 13 states lower than RBI Target
Data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Wednesday showed retail inflation, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI), cooled to a 7-month low of 3.6% in Feb from 4.3% in Jan, led by a sharp slide in food prices, triggering hopes of another cut in interest rates by the RBI in April.
“If we look at the state-wise inflation rates, inflation in bigger states continue to outstrip the all India inflation rate of the same month,” said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser at SBI.
He said that there are 12 states, where inflation in rural areas is higher than the all India rural inflation. Similarly, there are 10 states where urban inflation is higher than all India urban inflation.
Ghosh, in his report, also said rural inflation continued to outpace urban inflation, which is mainly due to higher food prices and the rural basket of food items’ weight (54.2%) is higher than the urban weight (36.3%).
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