New Delhi: The government released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on Thursday which mentioned that India’s Retail inflation rose to 3.21 per cent in February, while it stood at 2.74 per cent in January 2026. The Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation has released the inflation data based on the new CPI series with base year 2024.
Food inflation in February jumped to 3.47 per cent as compared to 2.13 per cent in January, the National Statistics Office (NSO) data mentioned. Items such as silver, gold, diamond, platinum jewellery’, coconut-copra, tomato, and cauliflower recorded a high pace of price hike. Disinflation was recorded in potato, arhar, litchi, garlic, and onion.
Inflation figures are largely impacted by the rate of food items as they carry the highest weight in the CPI basket. In February, food inflation rose to 3.47%, which was 2.13% in January. However, a decline was also seen in the prices of some essential kitchen items.
Garlic inflation rate was recorded at -31.09%
Onion prices declined by -28.20%
Potato prices went down by -18.46%
Inflation rates for rural and urban areas were recorded at 3.37 per cent and 3.02 per cent, respectively.
Top 5 items with low inflation
| Items | Weight | Inflation (%) February, 2026 |
Inflation (%) January, 2026 |
| Garlic | 0.3738 |
-31.09 | -53.03 |
| Onion | 0.7006 |
-28.2 | -29.3 |
| Potato | 0.7549 |
-18.46 | -28.98 |
| Arhar, Tur | 0.5333 |
-16 | -24.9 |
| Litchi | 0.0102 | -11.52 | -12.67 |
Top 5 items with high inflation
| Items | Weight | Inflation (%) February, 2026 |
Inflation (%) January, 2026 |
| Silver Jewellery | 0.3127 |
160.84 | 160.12 |
| Gold/Diamond/Platinum Jewellery | 0.6230 |
48.16 | 46.8 |
| Coconut: copra | 0.0854 |
46.16 | 47.17 |
| Tomato | 0.4961 |
45.29 | 64.58 |
| Cauliflower | 0.2330 |
43.77 | 37.83 |
Key points of the new CPI basket
- The total weight of food and beverages declined to 36.75%
- The weight of housing, water, electricity, and gas jumped to 17.7%
- New items such as OTT subscriptions, rural housing, and digital storage devices have been included in the new basket
- Old items like VCRs and audio cassettes have been removed
All India General (Rural, Urban and Combined) division wise indices and inflation for February, 2026 (Provisional)
| Division code | Division name | Index | Inflation | ||||
| Rural | Urban | Comb. | Rural | Urban | Comb. | ||
| 1 | Food and beverages | 103.8 | 103.99 | 103.87 | 3.36 | 3.33 | 3.35 |
| 2 | Paan, tobacco and intoxicants | 105.43 | 105.37 | 105.41 | 3.47 | 3.56 | 3.49 |
| 3 | Clothing and footwear | 106.81 | 104.98 | 106.11 | 3.24 | 2.11 | 2.81 |
| 4 | Housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels | 102.19 | 102.02 | 102.09 | 1.33 | 1.63 | 1.52 |
| 5 | Furnishings, household equipment and routine household maintenance | 103.25 | 102.9 | 103.1 | 1.55 | 1.21 | 1.4 |
| 6 | Health | 103.63 | 104.32 | 103.9 | 1.77 | 2.1 | 1.9 |
| 7 | Transport | 100.7 | 100.67 | 100.69 | -0.05 | -0.05 | -0.05 |
| 8 | Information and communication | 103.65 | 103.07 | 103.39 | 0.32 | 0.15 | 0.25 |
| 9 | Recreation, sport and culture | 104.08 | 104.27 | 104.17 | 1.99 | 2.42 | 2.21 |
| 10 | Education services | 104.78 | 105.74 | 105.36 | 3 | 3.54 | 3.33 |
| 11 | Restaurants and accommodation services | 105.07 | 106.75 | 105.96 | 2.02 | 3.35 | 2.73 |
| 13 | Personal care, social protection and miscellaneous goods and services | 125.24 | 123.41 | 124.45 | 20.6 | 18.4 | 19.64 |
| All India | 104.74 | 104.37 | 104.57 | 3.37 | 3.02 | 3.21 | |