Latest. The ministry’s own release, read in full in this update, confirms the print as provisional and puts the composition in item terms: onion prices rose 116.22% year on year and garlic 60.74%, the two largest increases in the basket, while potato prices fell 14.24%. The November CPI release is scheduled for December 14.
India’s consumer price inflation rose to 6.09% year on year in October, the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation reported on Thursday, up from 5.54% in September and above the 5.93% median forecast in a Reuters poll. The print crosses the upper bound of the Reserve Bank of India’s 2% to 6% tolerance band for the first time since October 2024, and it is a 24-month high.
Food did the work. The Consumer Food Price Index rose 8.94% year on year, up from 7.74% in September, with rural food inflation at 9.09% and urban food inflation at 8.68%. The rural headline rate, 6.63%, ran well above the urban rate of 5.41%, the same pattern as September, when rural inflation was 6.08% against 4.88% in urban areas. Pre-release estimates had the composition right: a Financial Express poll of 11 economists put the headline at 6.1% on a surge in food inflation, and ICRA expected food and beverages inflation to cross 8%.
The print lands six weeks after the RBI raised the repo rate 25 basis points to 5.50% on October 7, its first increase since February 2023, in a unanimous vote. The central bank’s own projection had headline inflation peaking at 6.0% in the October to December quarter, so October has already reached the projected peak in its first month. Market pricing moved on the release: investingLive reported a 69% probability of a 25 basis point hike at the next meeting and 31% on a 50 basis point move, with no probability left on a hold.
That repricing is the consequence for the December 2 to 4 Monetary Policy Committee meeting. Before the release, the question was whether the October tightening needed a follow-up; a print above the tolerance ceiling, driven by food prices that monetary policy reaches slowly, makes the argument about the size of the next hike rather than its existence. The cost of crude is the channel the RBI cannot control: higher oil prices since the US-Iran war began have raised India’s import bill and fed into transport, energy and farm production costs, and a weaker rupee has added to imported inflation.