Food inflation slowed to 5.91 percent from 8.35 percent, with high pulses prices being offset by weak vegetable prices.
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Meanwhile, in separate data released today, industrial output contracted 2.4 per cent in July, from 2.1 per cent growth in June, mainly dragged down by lower production of capital goods and consumer non-durables.
The previous low in industrial production was witnessed in November last year when the factory output shrunk by 3.4 per cent. Factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had grown by 4.3 per cent in July last year.
In terms of industries, twelve out of the twenty two industry groups in the manufacturing sector have shown negative growth during the month of July 2016 as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year.
The General Index for the month of July 2016 stands at 176.1, which is 2.4 percent lower as compared to the level in the month of July 2015.
Growth in output of consumer durables decelerated to 5.9 % in July compared to 10.5 % a year ago. The consumer non-durable goods output declined by 1.7 % in July against 4.4 % contraction a year ago. The cumulative growth in these three sectors during April-July 2016 over the corresponding period of 2015 has been 2.0 percent, (-) 1.4 percent and 7.1 percent respectively.
Consumer price index-based (CPI-based) inflation stood at 5.05% versus 6.07%.
India’s retail inflation slowed to 5.05% in August led by easing food prices especially vegetables and making a strong case for the newly appointed RBI governor Urjit Patel to cut rates in the next monetary policy review on October 4. The readings for eggs came in at 9.58 per cent, milk and products 4.36 per cent and oil and fat 4.94 per cent.
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The RBI has a March 2017 inflation target of 5 per cent. Economists polled by NDTV Profit had expected consumer inflation at 5.2 per cent in August.
