Food prices don’t hit every Indian household the same way.
In rural India, food and beverages make up more than half of the CPI basket, compared with just over a third in urban India.
Meanwhile, housing accounts for over a fifth of urban CPI but doesn’t feature separately in the rural basket.
That means the same price shock can produce very different inflation experiences.
A spike in vegetables or cereals has an outsized impact on rural inflation, while urban households are relatively more exposed to housing and services.
So when India’s inflation number moves, what’s driving it depends a lot on where you live.