Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: Driven up by surging prices for vegetables, fruit and milk, retail inflation accelerated to 7.96 percent in July as compared to 7.46 percent last month, government data showed on Tuesday.
The food inflation also grew to 9.36 percent as compared to 7.97 last month. The vegetable price inflation has been recorded at 16.88 percent versus 8.79 percent last month.
The urban inflation growth was at 7.42 percent as 6.82 compared to percent last month.
RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan held benchmark interest rates at 8 percent at the June policy meeting. He has raised rates three times since taking charge last September. The next policy review is due on Aug. 5.
An uncertain outlook for global crude oil prices is also keeping India's policymakers off-balance. A spike in crude prices could also aggravate India's inflation, since the country imports nearly 80 percent of its oil.
With Agency Inputs