Retail inflation shoots up to 5.54% in September

Mumbai: India's retail inflation rose to 5.54 per cent in September 2026 on a year-on-year basis (YoY), driven by higher food prices, provisional data by the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed on Monday.

This was the highest inflation rate recorded this year, pushing up household costs. The consumer price index (CPI)-based inflation came in higher than the 4.83 per cent reading recorded in August. The figure was released day after the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) hiked the benchmark lending rate or the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50 per cent - a move to curb inflation.

This was the first time the headline inflation rate crossed the 5 per cent mark in the new CPI series. According to the data released by the government, food inflation rose to 7.74 per cent in September from 5.97 per cent in August. Food prices were among the key drivers of the higher inflation rate.

Food and beverages saw an inflation rate of 7.36 per cent in September. Onion, ginger, garlic, lemon were among the top food items that saw the highest rate of inflation. Onion inflation rose to 108.09 per cent in September from 48.78 per cent in August.

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The Hans India