Telangana tops India’s inflation table for eighth consecutive month | Economy & Policy News

Telangana has been the country’s most inflation-hit state in every single month of the year, an unbroken run at number one from January through August, an analysis of data released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed. Its rate climbed steadily through the first half — from 4.92 per cent in January to a peak of 6.36 per cent in June — before easing only fractionally to 6.27 per cent in August.

Ranked by combined (rural+urban) inflation, Tamil Nadu (5.92 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (5.55 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (5.53 per cent) and Odisha (5.52 per cent) made it to the leaderboard in August.

Analysis of the rural-urban break-up reveals that the single highest inflation reading anywhere among the states belonged to rural Telangana, at 6.79 per cent. Telangana’s towns were the country’s hottest urban markets too, at 5.88 per cent, meaning the state topped both the rural and urban sub-tables as well as the combined ranking.

According to the data released on the new base of 2024 since January, the rankings of the top five states — excluding the fixed point of Telangana — have seen a shuffle.

Kerala sat second in January, Sikkim rose to second in February and March, and Rajasthan held fourth place through the first two months. All three have since vanished from the rankings — Rajasthan after February, and Sikkim and Kerala since April — as has Karnataka, which dropped out entirely in August.

Andhra Pradesh has now become Telangana’s steadiest challenger through the middle of the year, while Tamil Nadu climbed to second by August. Two newcomers rose in behind them — Madhya Pradesh, up to third, and Odisha, hovering near the bottom of the table.

Underpinning the whole table is a rural squeeze. In August, all five of the leading states were driven by their villages rather than their towns. The rural-urban gap was widest in Odisha, where rural inflation of 5.9 per cent ran above the urban rate of 4.47 per cent, and nearly as wide in Madhya Pradesh (5.93 per cent against 4.96 per cent), Telangana (6.79 per cent against 5.88 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (5.88 per cent against 4.98 per cent); only Tamil Nadu showed a narrow divide, at 6.10 per cent in rural areas against 5.78 per cent in urban areas.

The rural tilt reaches well beyond the leaders. Nationally, rural inflation averaged 5.23 per cent against 4.31 per cent in urban areas in August, and the countryside was the more inflationary sector in 23 of the 28 states.