India’s consumer price inflation rate rose marginally to 3.05% in May, data released by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation showed on Wednesday. The Consumer Price Index inflation for the month of April stood at 2.99%.

Data showed that food prices grew 1.83% in May compared to 1.1% in April. Food prices have been steadily rising since March, NDTV reported.

The inflation rate for vegetables stood at 5.46%, while the price of cereals and products grew at the same rate of 1.24%. Prices of health products rose 8.01% while meat and fish cost 8.12% more. While the retail prices in the education sector rose 6.69%, miscellaneous items cost 4.62% more.

The retail prices of fruits fell by 5.17%, and the retail price of sugar and confectionery declined 0.27%.

The data showed that CPI-based inflation remained under the Reserve Bank of India’s target level of 4%, Moneycontrol reported.

Industrial production rises in April

India’s industrial output growth rate, meanwhile, picked up in April to 3.4%, the data released by the ministry showed. The industrial output growth in February and March was 0.1% each.

Data released on Wednesday showed that manufacturing, which accounts for 78% weightage in the Index of Industrial Production, grew 2.8% in April, while mining and electricity grew 5.1% and 6%.

The government also said that the cumulative growth for the April 2018 to March 2019 period stood at 3.6%. The manufacturing sector grew by 2.9%, mining by 3.6% and electricity by 5.2%.

In April, 14 out of 23 industry groups in the manufacturing sector showed positive growth, the government said. The manufacture of wearing apparel showed the highest positive growth at 33.6%. On the other hand, the manufacture of paper and paper products declined by 12.6%.

For the April 2018 to March 2019 financial year, manufacture of computer, electronic and optical products showed the highest growth at 13.5%, while production of items in the other manufacturing category declined by 12.5%.

In May, the government announced that India’s Gross Domestic Product growth rate had declined to 5.8% in the last quarter of the financial year 2018-’19. This was the slowest pace of growth in 17 quarters. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation also revised the GDP growth for 2018-’19 downwards to 6.8% from the earlier estimated 7%.