Consumer price-based inflation jumped to 6.95 per cent in March, mainly on account of costlier food items, according to government data released on Tuesday.
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation was 6.07 per cent in February.
The inflation in the food basket was 7.68 per cent in March, up from 5.85 per cent in the preceding month.
It is for the third straight month that the retail inflation remained above the Reserve Bank of India's comfort zone.
RBI, which mainly factors in the retail inflation while arriving at its bi-monthly monetary policy, has been tasked by the government to keep the inflation between 2 and 6 per cent.
Factory output rises 1.7 pc in Feb: Govt data
The factory output rose 1.7 per cent in February, mainly on account of rise in the mining sector and power generation.
According to the government data released on Tuesday, the manufacturing sector recorded a growth of 0.8 per cent.
The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had declined 3.2 per cent in February 2021.
The cumulative growth in April-February 2021-22 worked out to be 12.5 per cent. In the year-ago period, there was a contraction of 11.1 per cent.
During the 11-month period, the manufacturing sector recorded a growth of 12.9 per cent whereas it was a decline of 12.5 per cent in the year-ago period.