Congress takes dig at govt over rising food prices

New Delhi: The Congress expressed concern on Tuesday over the high inflation due to food prices rising beyond the RBI's tolerance level and took a dig at the government, saying in such a situation, all it could do was exclude food prices from inflation measurement.

"Food inflation is now surging to double digits. Vegetable prices jumped 42.18 per cent in October. Onions are now selling in places like Mumbai at prices as high as Rs 80 per kilogram. Retail inflation is now above the RBI's tolerance ceiling of 6 per cent.

"All this is happening with sluggish consumption, lukewarm investment, stagnant real wages, and widespread unemployment. And when faced with this food price rise, the government's impulse is only to exclude food prices from inflation measurement," Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a post on X.

Retail inflation breached the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) upper tolerance level, soaring to a 14-month high of 6.21 per cent in October mainly on account of the rising food prices.

Inflation based on the consumer price index (CPI) was 5.49 per cent in September and 4.87 per cent in the year-ago month.

Retail inflation trended below the RBI's upper tolerance band of 6 per cent since September last year. It was at 6.83 per cent in August 2023.

The RBI, which mainly factors in the CPI while arriving at its bi-monthly monetary policy, has been tasked by the government with ensuring that retail inflation remains at 4 per cent, with a margin of 2 per cent on either side.

According to data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) on Tuesday, inflation in the food basket increased to 10.87 per cent in October, compared to 9.24 per cent in September and 6.61 per cent in October 2023.

The Congress has been critical of the BJP-led Centre over its failure to control food prices.