Retail inflation since Dec 2020 higher than govt figures: SBI SBI recommended urgent fuel price cut through tax rationalisation, otherwise consumers' non discretionary spending will continue to get distorted and impart an upward bias in inflation BusinessToday.In | May 17, 2021 | Updated 18:22 IST A report by SBI Research has claimed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) computed inflation since December last year is higher than the figures reported by government's Central Statistics Organisation (CSO). The research desk said that it re-estimated the CPI inflation since April 2020 "by using monthly credit card spends of SBI credit cards of a sufficiently large sample of customers". The exercise was carried out in the backdrop of apprehensions that CSO's inflation numbers for April 2021 were based on "approximation at best", and to account for changing behavioural habits at all levels.