As a result of top-level rates of food and fuel, wholesale price-based inflation in India raised to 14.55% in March from 13.11% in February. Additionally, retail inflation in March has also hiked to 6.95%, which is a 17-month high.
The food index increased to 8.71% from 8.47% in March, while fuel prices register 34.52% in March, which was only at 31.50% in February.
As per the government sources, the high rate of inflation in March 2022 is mainly because of the increase in prices of crude petroleum and natural gas, basic metals, mineral oils, etc due to interruption in the global supply chain as a consequence of the Russia-Ukraine crisis.
In the wake of global supply disruptions, the basis WPI inflation solidified in March with a consecutive rise of 2.2%. With the inflation rate escalating to 10.9%, the key WPI registered an immense 2.2% hike in consecutive terms in the month of March this year, and this is a repercussion of the geopolitical tensions.
The Reserve Bank of India considers the CPI or retail inflation but not the WPI-based inflation or arriving at monetary policy decisions. Earlier, RBI also reassessed its inflation outgrowth upwards to 5.7% from 4.5% for the financial year 2022-23.