India's retail inflation rises to 6.95% in March; IIP remains muted

Food and oil prices push inflation to 17-month high

India’s annual retail inflation shot up to a 17-month high in March while factory output contracted sequentially in February, complicating policy choices for the central bank.

The data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on Tuesday showed that the retail inflation rate rose to 6.95 per cent in March from a year ago, remaining above the tolerance limit of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the third straight month. The Index of Industrial Production (IIP), on the other hand, grew 1.7 per cent on an annual basis in February but contracted 4.7 per cent month on month, signalling that