Retail inflation rose to 3.93% in May due to increasing fuel, food prices
New Delhi, June 12: Increasing fuel and food prices pushed India’s retail inflation upwards to 3.93 per cent in May compared to 3.48 per cent in April, according to the official data released today.
Consumer Price Index-based inflation in the food basket was 4.78 per cent in May, higher than 4.2 per cent in April, according to the data.
Precious metal jewellery, tomato, ginger, raisin (kishmish), and monacca were the five items with the highest inflation.
On the other hand, potato, peas, motor car and jeep, cumin (jeera) and ‘motor cycle and scooter’ were the top five items with low inflation at the All India combined level in May, 2026.
Retail fuel prices
Since May, retail fuel prices have been raised cumulatively by 7.4 per cent for petrol and 8.4 per cent for diesel.
The increase implies a direct impact of about 36 basis points on headline inflation, which, along with second-order effects, would be reflected in consumer price (CPI) inflation in the coming months, the RBI said in its monetary policy statement early this month.
The housing inflation rate, year-on-year (YoY), for the month of May, 2026 was 2.12 per cent, and the corresponding inflation rates for rural and urban were 2.73 per cent and 1.91 per cent, respectively.
Last week, the RBI raised its inflation projection for the current fiscal to 5.1 per cent from 4.6 per cent, largely due to mounting input costs, driven by the pass-through of higher global energy prices to retail petrol and diesel prices. (BVI)
