Steps To Check Prices Will Be Felt More Significantly In Coming Months: Finance Ministry
Export curbs in the past have resulted in price moderation of commodities like edible oil and pulses, finance ministry said.
The Finance Ministry on Monday attributed the rise in inflation to base effect and increase in food and fuel prices, and stressed that initiatives taken by the government to curb price rise will be felt more significantly in the coming months.
According to the data, the retail inflation inched up to 7% in August from 6.71% in July.
The ministry further said that the core inflation, which is calculated by excluding the transient components of CPI — 'food and beverages' and 'fuel and light' at 5.9% remained below the tolerance limit of 6% for the fourth consecutive month.
"The headline inflation based on retail CPI recorded a moderate increase from 6.71% in July '22 to 7% in August '22. This increase is attributable both to an adverse base effect and an increase in food & fuel prices - the transient components of CPI inflation," the ministry said in a series of tweets.
CPI Inflation Rises To 7% In August
This is the second instance since RBI adopted the inflation targeting approach that the retail inflation has breached the upper tolerance limit of 6% for eight consecutive months — the earlier instance was from April 2020 to November 2020.
However, the finance ministry expressed optimism that export curbs imposed by the government on atta, rice, maida, etc. will moderate prices of these items.
"Government has prohibited exports of food products like wheat flour/atta, rice, maida, etc. to keep domestic supplies steady and curb rise in prices. The impact of these measures is expected to be felt more significantly in the coming weeks and months," the ministry said in another tweet.
Similar measures taken in the past have resulted in price moderation of commodities like edible oil and pulses, the ministry said.
"To soften the prices of edible oils and pulses, tariffs on imported items have been rationalized periodically and stock limits on edible oils have been kept, to avoid hoarding. Inflation in “oils and fats” and “pulses and products” have moderated to 5.62% and 2.52% respectively," another tweet said.
Referring to sobering prices of iron ore and steel, the ministry said this coupled with the measures taken by the government to rationalize tariff structures of inputs to augment domestic supply has helped to keep cost push inflation in consumer items under control.
"Despite erratic monsoons and negative seasonality in vegetable prices, food inflation in July still lower than the April peak of the current year. With global inflation pressures, inflationary expectations remain anchored in India with stable core inflation," another tweet said.
According to IIM-Ahmedabad's One-year ahead Business Inflation Expectations Survey, it said, July has seen 34 basis points decline to 4.83% from 5.17% in June.
Quoting the survey, the ministry said, inflation expectations have fallen below 5% after 17 months.