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After the wholesale inflation clocked to a seven-month high, the retail inflation for September also accelerated to a three-month high, according to official data released today.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation rose to 9.84% from 9.52% in August mainly due to stark rise in vegetable prices. The prices of vegetables in September rose a massive 34.93% from 26.48% a month ago.
This stoked up the food inflation to 11.44% from 11.06%. In August, the food inflation had eased from a price rise of 11.24% in July.
This takes the average CPI for the second quarter to 9.6% from 9.5% in the first quarter this year.
Whereas on one hand, the CPI based inflation eased in cities, the retail inflation accelerated in villages in September. In urban areas, the rate stood at 9.93 from 10.32 a month ago and in rural areas, it stood at 9.71% from 8.93% in August.
Fuel and light inflation went up to 7.67% from 7.58% in August.
The wholesale price index- (WPI) based inflation stood at a seven-month high of 6.46% in September, compared to 6.1% in the previous month.
The Reserve Bank of India will have a tough task in hand and may not look to east the interest rates after raising the repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.5% in its mid-term policy review last month.
The RBI had raised its concern on the rising retail inflation, which it said, has been "eroding consumer and business confidence".
