Winning Bizness Desk

Mumbai. Unprecedented increase in the price of food items including tomatoes, has led an all time high retail inflation rate in July 2023 in last 15 months. This inflation rate has been recorded at more than 7 percent in last month while this rate was recorded at 4.81 in June 2023. However, the inflation rate in the month of July is within the tolerance limit of 6 percent fixed by the RBI. According to the data, the retail inflation rate in urban areas remained at 7.63% whereas, in rural areas this rate has been recorded as 7.20 percent. The Ministry of Statistics has released data on the retail inflation rate and according to these figures, it has been observed that there has been a huge increase in the inflation rate of food items. In June, this rate was recorded at 4.49 percent. This means that the inflation rate of food has doubled in a single month. This is the highest inflation rate since October 2020.

Vegetables prices soaring high

The rate of inflation of vegetables in the month of July was 37.34 percent, while in June 2023, this rate was minus 0.93 percent. This means that the inflation rate of leafy greens and vegetables has increased by more than 38 percent in one month. Inflation rate of pulses is 13.27 percent. In June it was 10.53 percent. The inflation rate for spices stood at 21.53 percent, as against 19.19 percent in June. Inflation rate of milk and related products has been recorded at 8.34 percent while it was recorded as 8.56 percent in June. The inflation rate of food grains and allied products is 13.04 percent, whereas in June, it was 12.71 percent.

No relief from expensive EMI

Only after the retail inflation rate crossed 7 percent in May 2022 last year, the RBI started raising the policy rate i.e. the repo rate. The repo rate was increased from 4 percent to 6.50 percent. In May 2023, when the retail inflation rate comes down to 4.25 per cent, there was hope of relief from costly EMIs. But again with retail inflation moving past 7 per cent, the hope of relief from expensive EMIs has faded for a while.