By Siddhi Nawar
India’s Consumer Price Index (CPI)-based for March 2025 slowed down to 3.34%, marking a decline of 27 basis points from February’s 3.61%, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. It is the lowest year-on-year inflation after August, 2019.
The sharp drop was largely due to a decline of 106 basis points in food prices with food inflation falling to 2.69%, the lowest since November 2021.
Rural areas saw a more pronounced softening, with overall inflation falling to 3.25% in March from 3.79% in February. Rural food inflation also eased to 2.82%. Meanwhile, urban inflation inched up marginally to 3.43%, even as urban food inflation fell sharply to 2.48% from 3.15% in the previous month.
In terms of categories beyond food, housing inflation in urban areas rose slightly to 3.03% from 2.91%. Fuel and light inflation rebounded to 1.48% in March from -1.33% in February, showing signs of recovery.
Education and health segments recorded inflation rates of 3.98% and 4.26%, respectively. Transport and communication inflation also rose, standing at 3.30% compared to 2.93% the month before.
Among individual items, the sharpest year-on-year price increases were observed in coconut oil (56.81%), coconut (42.05%), gold (34.09%), silver (31.57%), and grapes (25.55%).
MoSPI’s data also featured the top five Indian states recording the highest year-on-year inflation in March 2025:
Movement of CPI Inflation so far:
