Categories: Commerce

CPI inflation lowest in six years, WPI inflation lowest in 13 months

New Delhi: On 13 May 2025, the Ministry of Statistics And Programme Implementation (MoSPI), released Consumer Price Index data.  On 14 May 2025, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) data was released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Let us examine both one by one.

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

The Press Release from MoSPI showed that India’s retail inflation in April declined to its lowest level in over six years – thanks to lower food prices.

According to the Press Release from MoSPI, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation has declined from 3.34 percent in March 2025 to 3.16 percent in April 2025, compared to 4.83 percent in the same month in 2024.

This is the lowest in 69 months, since July 2019 when it was 3.15 percent.

In April 2025, there was a significant decline in headline inflation and food inflation. This decline was primarily due to lower inflation rates for vegetables, pulses and products, fruits, meat and fish, personal care and effects, and cereals and products.

Food inflation

The year-on-year food inflation rate in India for April 2025 is 1.78 percent, with rural and urban rates at 1.85 percent and 1.64 percent respectively. There has been a significant decrease of 91 basis points in food inflation compared to March 2025, making it the lowest since October 2021.

The graph below shows the top five states with the highest year-on-year inflation rates for April 2025.

Kerala tops the states with the highest inflation followed by Karnataka, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab and Uttarakhand.

As the headline inflation is showing a downward trend for the third month in a row, the inflation has remained well below Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) Inflation target of 4 percent. Thus giving more room to the central bank to lower the key policy rate to stimulate economic growth.

The RBI may more likely to opt for a third consecutive rate cut in its June monetary policy review.

Wholesale Price Index (WPI)

The annual inflation rate based on the All India Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for April 2025 is 0.85 percent (provisional), compared to April 2024.

This is the lowest since March 2024, and has come in at 0.53 percent while later data was revised to 0.26 percent. This suggests that cost pressures are easing at the producer level during that period.

The positive inflation rate is mainly attributed to price increases in food products, manufacturing, chemicals, transport equipment, and machinery.

WPI food inflation

The WPI Food Index, which includes food articles and food products, rose from 188.8 in March 2025 to 189.3 in April 2025.

The annual inflation rate based on the index decreased from 4.66 percent in March to 2.55 percent in April.

Next date of Press Release of CPI and WPI Inflation

The May 2025 CPI will be released on 12 June 2025 (Thursday), or the subsequent business day, should the 12th be a holiday.

The May 2025 WPI Press Release will be published on 16 June 2025.

TBM Newsdesk

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