Kerala recorded the highest inflation rate among all the states in India in February, according to the National Statistical Office (NSO). Retail inflation in Kerala, at 7.3%, was double that of the national average.
Retail inflation in the country fell to 3.6% in February, marking a seven-month low, according to data released by the NSO. The decline was led by a sharp fall in food prices, raising expectations of a possible interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India in April. In January, the inflation rate stood at 4.3%.
Kerala was followed by Chhattisgarh at 4.9%, Karnataka at 4.5%, Bihar at 4.5%, and Jammu & Kashmir at 4.3%. On the lower end, Telangana had the least inflation at 1.3%, followed by Delhi at 1.5% and Andhra Pradesh at 2.4%. Of the 22 states analyzed, 13 reported inflation rates below the RBI's target of 4%.
Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic adviser at SBI, noted that inflation in larger states remained higher than the all-India inflation rate for the same period. "If we look at the state-wise inflation rates, inflation in bigger states continues to outstrip the all-India inflation rate of the same month," he said.
Ghosh further highlighted that in 12 states, rural inflation was higher than the national rural inflation rate, while in 10 states, urban inflation exceeded the national urban inflation rate. He attributed this trend to the composition of rural and urban consumption baskets. "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%) being higher than the urban weight (36.3%)," he added.
(By arrangement with livemint.com)
