New Delhi, November 7 (IANS). The retail inflation rate for October may fall by 0.4 percent to 0.6 percent. The reason for this is the decline in prices of essential commodities. This information was given in a report of Bank of Baroda released on Friday.
The report said that the Bank of Baroda Essential Commodities Index (BoB ECI) is continuously declining and has fallen by 3.6 percent in October and has fallen by 3.8 percent so far this month (till November 6).
Bank of Baroda economist Aditi Gupta said, “The downward trend in food inflation is mainly due to the continued deflation in vegetables, especially tomatoes, onions and potatoes. This is also supported by the strong increase in arrivals in the mandi.”
According to the data of the produce portal, the market arrival of tomato, onion and potato in the April-October period has been 14.3 percent, 30.5 percent and 23.1 percent more respectively compared to the same period last year.
“Similar trends are expected to continue in the coming months, as the harvesting season begins. This is likely to significantly impair India’s inflation outlook,” Gupta said.
It was reported in the report that this year a big decline has been seen in the prices of vegetables.
Onion prices have fallen by 51.2 percent in October. Retail prices of tomatoes also fell sharply by 39.9 percent in October, compared to 8.3 percent in September.
Potato prices have also seen a steady decline in the last seven months. Retail prices of potatoes fell by 31.3 percent in October.
Apart from other commodities, major pulses also continued the deflationary trend in October. Among pulses, tur prices have fallen the most by 29.4 per cent, the biggest fall since January 2018.
–IANS
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