On February 13, 2020, According to the data released by the National Statistical Organisation (NSO) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI), Retail inflation rose to a 68-month high of 7.59 % in January 2020 as against 7.35% in December 2019 due to prices of food items such as vegetables, eggs, meat and fish, along with fuel became costlier.
On the other hand, Index of industrial production (IIP) can also be seen falling, with industrial production slipping 0.3 % in December 2019 as compared to 2.5 % growth in the same month a year ago.
Key Points:
i.Inflation:The retail inflation based on the consumer price index (CPI) stood at 7.35 percent in December 2019. In the month of January 2019 , it was 1.97 %.
The overall food inflation was 13.63 % in January 2020 as compared to a decrease of 2.24 % in January 2019 a year ago. However, it has come down to 14.19 % as of December 2019.
ii.IIP-sector wise growth:
Manufacturing sector : As per the data, the manufacturing sector declined by 1.2% in December 2019 as compared to a growth of 2.9 % in December 2018. The manufacturing sector declined in December as compared to November 2019, where it saw growth of 2.7 %.
Power generation: Electricity generation also registered a decline of 0.1 % in December 2019 as compared to December 2018. In the same month a year ago, power generation saw a growth of 4.5 %.
Mining output: However, the mining output has seen a slight improvement over the previous month. In terms of month to month, in November 2019, this sector saw growth of 1.7 %. It has increased to 5.4 % in December 2019.
iii.Use-based classification:
In addition, on a month-to-month basis, capital goods production  fell by 8.6%, primary goods growth declined marginally by 0.3%, intermediate goods growth increased by 17.1%, consumer durables growth declined 1.5%, consumer non-durables growth increased 2%.
About Retail inflation: It is the increase in the price of goods sold at retail market.In India, retail price is measured by the consumer price index (CPI),which is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and averaging them.
About IIP: It is an abstract number represents the status of production in the industrial sector for a given period of time as compared to a reference period of time. The current base year is 2011-2012.
About Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI):
Founded– 15 October 1999.
Headquarters– New Delhi.
Minister of State(MoS- independent Charge)- Rao Inderjit Singh.
Secretary– Shri Pravin Srivastava
It came into existence after the merger of the Department of Statistics and the Department of Programme Implementation.
