Tomatoes keep thali cost up in August: Crisil
While the price of vegetarian thali declined 0.6% sequentially to Rs 33.8 in August from Rs 34 in the previous month, non-vegetarian thali prices were down 30 paise to Rs 67.3.
“Of the 24% rise in the vegetarian thali cost, 21% can be attributed solely to the price of tomato, which rose 176% on-year to Rs 102/kg in the month vs Rs 37/kg a year ago,” the rating agency stated in its report released on Thursday.
The thali prices indicate that there would be little respite from inflation in August. Experts indicate that inflation will stay above the 7% mark for the second consecutive month.
Inflation had breached RBI target’s upper band of 6% for the first time in July, with prices rising 7.4% compared to the previous year.
The data on retail inflation for August will be released on September 12.
However, there may be some respite from September onwards, as tomato prices have eased and the government has reduced prices of LPG cylinders by Rs 200.
“The costs could see some pullback in September as tomato retail price has halved on-month to Rs 51/kg. Also, the cost of a 14.2 kg LPG cylinder, which was Rs 1,103 in August, has been brought down to Rs 903 per cylinder from September,” the research note indicated.
An earlier ET article had pointed out that the LPG price cut will likely have a 0.1-0.3 percentage point impact on FY24 inflation.
However, food prices are unlikely to come down drastically, point experts, especially amid concerns of uneven monsoon due to El Nino.
The Crisil note pointed out that onion prices were up 8%, whereas chilli and cumin prices were 20% and 158%, respectively.
Given these have a lower share in thali, they only accounted for a 1% increase in the cost of vegetarian thali, according to Crisil.
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