77th Independence Day speech: Govt will take more steps to tackle inflation, says PM Modi

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said the government will be taking more measures to tackle inflation so as to minimise the burden of price rise on people.

In his address to the nation on the 77th Independence Day, Modi said the world is grappling with high inflation, and when India imports goods, it also imports inflation.

"The world is yet to fully recover from the impact of Covid pandemic. The war has created yet another problem. The world is grappling with the problem of inflation. Inflation has gripped the global economy," the prime minister said.

Further, he said when India import goods from other countries, "unfortunately" it also imports inflation.

Modi said the government has taken several steps to keep inflation under control, and some success has been achieved.

"But we cannot be satisfied (just) because our situation is better than the world. We have to take more steps to minimise the burden of price rise on our people. We will definitely take the steps. My efforts will continue," he said.

The Prime Minister's assertion also comes a day after retail inflation jumped to 7.44 per cent in July, primarily driven by costlier tomatoes and vegetables.

For the first time in the current fiscal, retail inflation breached the Reserve Bank of India's comfort level of 6 per cent.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation surged to 7.44 per cent in July, much higher than 4.87 per cent in June.

Retail inflation stood at 6.71 per cent in July 2022 and the previous high was recorded at 7.79 per cent in April 2022.

RBI has the mandate to keep retail inflation in the range of 2 to 6 per cent and after remaining above the upper limit for most of the 2022-23 financial year, inflation was in the central bank's comfort zone this fiscal till June.

While unveiling the bi-monthly monetary policy last week, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das had warned of a substantial increase in headline inflation in the near-term and revised upwards the inflation forecast for the second quarter to 6.2 per cent.