Retail inflation in September increased to 7.34%, government data released on Monday showed. This is the highest level of inflation recorded since January, according to NDTV. In August, consumer price inflation was at 6.69%.

Retail inflation – the rate of increase in retail prices of essential items – rose as prices of some food items continued to increase. It is above the Reserve Bank of India’s range of 2% to 6%.

According to the CPI data, food inflation in September was at 10.68% as against 9.05% in August. “During the month of September 2020, NSO [National Statistics Office] collected prices from 98% villages and 97.8% urban markets while the prices reported therein were 83.0% for rural and 87.9% for urban,” said the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The inflation in vegetables stood at 20.73% as against 11.41% in August. The inflation in pulses stood at 14.67% as against 14.44% in August.

The central bank had in its Monetary Policy Review last week kept interest rates unchanged. The repo rate stayed at 4% and the reverse repo rate at 3.3%. RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had said that the committee unanimously voted to keep rates unchanged, and decided to maintain its accommodative monetary policy stance to support growth amid the coronavirus pandemic.