Retail inflation for industrial workers softens to 3.97% in April

Retail inflation for industrial workers eased to 3.97 per cent in April mainly due lower prices of food items.

"The year-on-year inflation based on CPI-IW (Consumer Price Index-Industrial Workers) stood at 3.97 per cent for April, 2018 as compared to 4.36 percent for the previous month (March 2018) and 2.21 per cent during the corresponding month (April 2017) of the previous year," the labour ministry said in a statement.

The CPI-IW is used for working out dearness allowance and dearness relief for central government employees and pensioners respectively.

The food inflation stood at 1.33 per cent against 1.68 per cent of the previous month, and 0.67 per cent in April last year.

The All-India CPI-IW for April, 2018 increased by 1 point to 288.

On 1-month percentage change, it increased by 0.35 per cent between March and April this year, when compared with the increase of 0.73 per cent between the corresponding months of last year.

The maximum upward pressure to the change in current index came from Food group contributing (+) 1.01 percentage points to the total change.

At item level, rice, groundnut oil, potato, tomato, fish fresh, milk, some vegetables and fruits like apple, and Mango (Ripe) -- in addition to electricity charges, and petrol -- are responsible for the increase in index.

However, the increase was checked by wheat, gram dal, eggs, pure ghee, onion and sugar, among others, putting downward pressure on the index.

The indices of 39 centres were above the All-India Index, while for 38 centres they were below national average. The index of Bengaluru centre remained at par with All-India Index.