Consumer price inflation rises to 5.11 per cent in January

Retail inflation or consumer price inflation moved up to 5.11 per cent in January month-on-month, measured on a new base year 2012, mainly due to dearer food items including fruits and vegetables.

In December, retail inflation based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI) was at 4.28 per cent (recalculated with new base year).

The CPI inflation in December was 5 per cent with 2010 as base year.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has revised the base year to 2012 from 2010 for computing the consumer price index.

After releasing the new series, Chief Statistician T C A Anant told reporters that inflation in 2014-15 will be lower than the 2013-14 level.

He further said that besides changes in weight of items and groups, we have shifted to geometric mean for computing inflation from arithmetic mean used in previous series.

Food inflation in January was 6.13 per cent due to costlier fruits, vegetable and cereals.

The rate of price rise in egg contracted by 0.24 per cent in January, while the same shot up to 9.38 per cent in milk and related products.

The government also released Consumer Food Price Index (CFPI) which stood at 6.06 per cent on annual basis.