The consumer price index (CPI) inflation rate for March fell to 4.28%, in line with the estimates from the CNBC-TV18 poll.

Share Market Live

NSE

According to the poll, CPI rates were expected to fall further to about 4.2% in the month of March 2018 from 4.4% in February 2018, on a month-over-month basis.

The CPI for the month of March 2018 rose marginally to 136.50 points from 136.40 points in February 2018, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation said in the report.

Also Read

: February CPI rates fall due to decline in fuel, food prices

CPI inflation for the first half of 2018-19 was revised to between 4.7%-5.1%, and to 4.4% in the second half of the fiscal year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its first bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statement.

source: tradingeconomics.com

CPI rates for FY 19 are largely expected to be between 4.5-5%, providing the headroom to keep rates on hold in 2018, Radhika Rao, an economist at DBS Bank told Economic Times.

It is little higher than expected, said Soumya Kanti Ghosh, Chief Economic Advisor at SBI. "We were expecting it to be closer to 4.1%. It is around 15 basis points higher than what we expected," she said.

Tushar Arora, Senior Economist at HDFC Bank said the it has come in line with their expectations. "One main point on inflation is that we are actually not surprised with the uptick in core," he said.

Upasna Bhardwaj, Senior Economist at Kotak Mahindra Bank, said it is higher than they expected by almost 20-25 basis points. We were looking at vegetable prices at about 8.6% and that has come at 11.7%, so there itself food inflation has gone higher compared to what we were expecting," she said. "Along with that the core is also slightly higher."

What is your thought in terms of the core inflation hardening month on month?

"The growth is going up, manufacturing is strong, it means the demand pressures are slightly picking up," reasoned DK Joshi, Economists at Crisil fro the core inflation hardening month on month.

First Published:Apr 12, 2018 5:31 PM IST