Government on track to achieve lower inflation, says Chief Economic Adviser

Chief Economic Adviser V Anantha Nageswaran told CNBC-TV18 the government is on track to achieve lower inflation. “The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made its own projections on inflation and they do take into consideration those projections in terms of what policy stance they would take. RBI’s forecast suggests that inflation would be coming off the highs that we saw this year and we are on track to achieve that,” Nageswaran said.

India's Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation eased to a 21-month low of 5.85 percent in November, according to the data released by the government on December 14. In October 2022, it was recorded at 8.39 percent while in November 2021, it was at 14.87 percent.

He added that Index of Industrial Production (IIP) numbers tend to get adjusted in the later months, and so he wouldn’t read much into them.

“These IIP numbers are not seasonally adjusted and they do tend to get revised later. So I would not read too much into one number. We should also look at the fact that Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) numbers were quite strong both in manufacturing and services. So I would not read too much into one number,” Nageswaran said.

India's IIP for October dropped by 4 percent, way below Street estimates of -0.8 percent.