Consumer Price Index (CPI), stayed largely unchanged at a high of 7.01 percent in June as against 7.04 percent in May

 India's headline retail inflation rate, as measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), stayed largely unchanged at a high of 7.01 percent in June as against 7.04 percent in May.

The latest inflation print remained in line with the consensus estimates. As per a Moneycontrol poll, CPI inflation was seen at 7 percent in June.

At 7.01 percent, the June CPI inflation print takes average inflation for April-June to 7.3 percent, 20 basis points lower than the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) forecast of 7.5 percent, according to data released on July 12 by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. However, undershooting the forecast is of little significance at this stage, with the central bank on track to miss its mandate.

The RBI's Monetary Policy Committee is deemed to have failed when average CPI inflation is outside the 2-6 percent tolerance band for three consecutive quarters. With inflation having already averaged 6.3 percent in January-March, the RBI is now only one quarter away from failure.

The RBI's latest forecast pegs average CPI inflation for July-September at 7.4 percent.