Rupee rises 8 paise to close at 82.09 against US dollar Rising for the second straight session, the rupee appreciated 8 paise to close at 82.09 (provisional) against the US dollar on Friday, supported by softening crude oil prices in the international markets. However, a muted trend in domestic equities and foreign fund outflows capped the gains in the rupee, traders said. Also read: Where is share market headed after Nifty closes above 17620, Bank Nifty below 42150; check support, resistance On Thursday, the rupee closed at 82.17 against the US currency. The Indian currency has gained 15 paise in the past two trading sessions, even though the participants traded cautiously due to expectations of further interest rate hikes by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks. Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback’s strength against a basket of six currencies, rose 0.05 per cent to 101.89. Global oil benchmark Brent crude futures declined 0.15 per cent to USD 80.98 per barrel. On the domestic equity market front, the 30-share BSE Sensex inched up 22.71 points or 0.04 per cent to end at 59,655.06, and the broader NSE Nifty closed 0.40 points down at 17,624.05. Also read: ITC, Bajaj Auto, Cyient among 37 NSE stocks to hit 52-week highs; 7 touch 52-week lows Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net sellers in the capital market on Thursday as they offloaded shares worth Rs 1,169.32 crore, according to exchange data.
Retail inflation in milk was reported at 8.85% in May 2023. The milk inflation has remained elevated at over 6% since August 2022. Despite India being the largest milk producer since 1998, the commodity has been the second biggest factor after cereals such as rice and wheat in driving up retail inflation in the last fiscal.
Milk has the second highest weight in the food and beverages basket of the consumer price index at 6.61%, a notch lower than cereals and products with a 9.67% weight. Organised players, including Mother Dairy and Amul, hiked prices multiple times in the last one year citing higher fodder cost, robust demand and some impact due to reports of lumpy skin disease.
Industry sources said feed cost, which has a share of more than 65% in the cost of production of milk, has increased to Rs 20/kg from Rs 8 a year ago. The finance ministry in April had attributed the elevated milk inflation to a demand supply mismatch and said it could be one of the factors apart from volatile international crude oil prices and constrained supplies of milk would influence the country’s inflation trajectory.
“Milk production has been impacted by a lumpy skin disease infecting millions of cattle in late 2022,” the ministry said in the monthly economic review, adding that the vaccination drive against the disease is expected to curb the spread and immune the cattle against the skin disease.
According to official data, currently India is the world’s largest milk producer, and has a share of 23% in global milk production. For the first time in decades, the country’s milk production is likely to have stagnated in 2022-23 due to Lumpy Skin Disease in cattle across several states and the lagged effect of Covid-19 in the form of stunting of the animals, a senior official with department of animal husbandry and dairying recently had stated. The milk production was estimated at 221 million tonne in 2021-22.