Thaindian News

Mumbai, April 12 (IANS) Urban households in India don’t expect any immediate respite from price rise and a majority of them feel it would accelerate further in the coming quarters, a survey conducted by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has revealed.

Households expect inflation to rise by 60 basis points to 12.4 percent in January-March 2011 quarter from the perceived rate of 11.8 percent during the survey period.

Households fear inflation is likely to accelerate further to 13.1 percent by the end of this year, according to the RBI’s inflation expectation survey conducted among 4,000 urban households across 12 cities.

The 22nd round of the survey was conducted during October-December 2010 period, the RBI said in the April 2011 issue of its monthly bulletin.

“Households’ expectations of general price rise were mainly influenced by movements in food prices,” the central bank said.

According to official data, food inflation was recorded at 9.18 percent for the week ended March 26. General inflation was 8.31 percent in February.

Rise in general price level, especially in essential food items, has been a major concern for households as well as policy makers in the country for over one-and-a-half years now.

The RBI has adopted an aggressive monetary tightening policy to tame inflation. The central bank raised key policy rates for the eighth time in almost a year during its monetary policy review last month. However, it has failed to bring down the inflation to desired levels.

Households expect rise in prices of all product groups, including general prices, food and non-food products, durables and housing, but not services.

Daily-wage workers and housewives expected higher inflation rates compared to other categories.

City wise, households in Bangalore expected the highest inflation, while Patna the lowest, the survey said.