STATE TIMES NEWS
NEW DELHI: Retail inflation stood at 2.75 per cent in January under the new series of All India Consumer Price Index (CPI), with 2024 as the base year, released on Thursday.
The new series released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) under the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation has increased the number of goods from 259 to 308 and services from 40 to 50 to provide a better picture of the price situation.
The food inflation for January has worked out to be 2.13 per cent, and housing at 2.05 per cent.
The retail inflation, under the old series with base year 2012, was 4.26 per cent in January 2025 and 1.33 per cent in December.
Headline inflation in rural areas during January was 2.73 per cent and in urban India 2.77 per cent, according to NSO data.
According to the new CPI series, Telangana had the highest inflation at 4.92 per cent, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
According to the data, the top 5 items with low inflation in January were garlic, onion, potato, arhar, tur dal, and peas.
On the other hand, high inflation was in silver jewellery, tomato, coconut-copra, gold, diamond, platinum jewellery, and coconut oil. Base revised from 2012 to 2024 using Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) 2023-24.
At the all-India level, NSO said, the number of weighted items has increased from 299 to 358 in CPI 2024, goods items increased from 259 to 308, and services items increased from 40 to 50.
The new additions in the 2024 series are rural housing, online media service providers/streaming services, value-added dairy products, barley and its products, pen-drive and external hard disk, attendant, babysitter, and exercise equipment.
Meanwhile, the new series has removed VCR/VCD/DVD players, hiring charges, radio, tape recorder, clothing second-hand, CD/DVD audio/video cassettes and coir/rope.
Weights of different item groups, too, have been aligned with household expenditure patterns as captured in HCES 2023-24, it said.
Share of food and beverages has declined in the new series to 36.75 per cent from 45.86 per cent in the CPI 2012.
However, it remains the largest component of the CPI basket.
