Reserve Bank of India Governor Sanjay Malhotra on Monday said the new CPI inflation series based on 2024 prices will better reflect Indian households' consumption patterns and reduce volatility. In both ways, it will help in better CPI estimation, he said at a media briefing, following the post-Budget meeting of the RBI Central Board of Directors with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman here. Data released on February 12 showed retail inflation was 2.75 per cent in January, according to the new CPI series, which uses 2024 as the base year. The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation released the new CPI series, which widens coverage and tracks prices of 358 items, sharply up from 299 items in the old series. Headline inflation in January, the first month based on the new series, was above the lower end of the RBI's tolerance band of 2-6 per cent, a first since June 2025. It averaged 2.2 per cent in 2025, according to both the new and old series. "If the whole methodol