India’s inflation inched up to 3.2 percent compared with a revised 2.74 percent the previous month, according to government data released on March 12.

The government has revised inflation series in January, with the base year updated to 2024 from 2012, while also taking the item count to 358 from 299 earlier.

The new series shows that prices have been rising sequentially for four straight months, as the index rose to 104.57 in February from 104.46 in January and 104.10 in November and December.

A key shift in the revised CPI is the reduced dominance of food. Food’s weight has fallen below 40 percent for the first time, while non-food categories now account for over 60 percent of the index, up from roughly 45 percent earlier. At the same time, rural consumption has been given a higher effective weight, reflecting its growing contribution to overall demand.

Food inflation under the revised series rose to 3.47 percent, though its overall impact on headline inflation is expected to be lower than in previous series because of the reduced weighting.