Food and fuel costs have decreased in India. From this, retail inflation dropped to four-month low of 4.44 percent in February. Retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index was 5.07 percent in January.

However, it was 3.65 percent in February last year. Earlier, in November 2017, it was 4.88 percent.

According to the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), the inflation in consumer food segment declined to 3.26 percent in February, from 4.7 percent in the previous month. Inflation in vegetables eased to 17.57 percent in the previous month, which was 26.97 percent in January. At the same time, fruits inflation was 4.80 per cent in the month under review as against 6.24 per cent in the previous month.

In the last month, milk and its products were also cheap. The inflation rate was 4.21 percent in this section. Inflation rate for cereals and its products was 2.10 percent, meat and fish were 3.31 percent, while inflation was 8.51 percent in egg.

In the fuel and light category, inflation was 6.80 percent in February, which was 7.73 percent in January.

However, the price increase for transport and communications services was 2.39 percent, which was 1.97 percent in January.

On the other hand, With good performance of manufacturing sector, Industrial production growth rate was 7.5 per cent in January this year, compared with 3.5 per cent in the same month a year ago. Good demand of consumer and capital goods also led to industrial growth. According to the Central Statistics Office (CSO) figures, the growth in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) was 7.1 percent in December 2017.

In January this year, the main reason for the increase in IIP growth is the performance of the manufacturing sector. This sector's share in the index is 77.63 percent. It grew 8.7 percent in the month of January, which was 2.5 percent in January 2017. It indicates the revival in the economy. Production of capital goods, considered to be a mirror of investment, grew by 14.6 percent in January, 2018, compared to 0.6 percent in the same month a year ago. The growth rate in non-sustainable consumer goods segment was 10.5 percent in the month of January, which was 9.6 percent in January a year ago. This section includes items of everyday use.

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