By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s headline inflation would fall below the 10 percent mark by the end of this financial year, a leading economist and planning strategist said here Thursday.
“Inflation is expected to moderate below the double-digit mark by the end of the current fiscal,” Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia told reporters on the sidelines of a health summit of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, an industry lobby.
Ahluwalia has maintained that inflation was a short-term challenge and would be able to slow down the pace of the economy’s growth to 8 percent or marginally less in the current fiscal.
He said the softening of crude prices in the international market was a “welcome development”, and hoped that the domestic price situation would stabilise in due course.
Brent crude is down to $118 a barrel, a big relief to countries like India, which imports around 70 percent of the oil it consumes.
India’s headline inflation for the week ended July 19 touched a 13-year high at 11.98 percent as compared to 11.89 percent for the week before.
Inflation data for the year to July 26 will be released at 6.05 p.m. Thursday.
Ahluwalia’s assessment for inflation to moderate by the year-end was in consonance with Finance Minister P. Chidambaram’s view that inflation would start moderating after six to nine months.
At a closed-door Congress party orientation programme here Wednesday, Chidambaram had said the government had taken measures to contain inflation which would yield results in another six to nine months.