New Delhi, Apr 17: Trying hard to combat price rise, the government today received some respite with the inflation rate easing to 7.14 per cent during the first week of the current financial year.

Giving credence to the numerous steps taken by the UPA government to tackle the surging prices, the official data today revealed that inflation softened by 0.27 per cent during the week ending April 5, down from a 40-month high level of 7.41 per cent a week ago. The inflation rate was 6.44 per cent a year ago.

The wholesale price based inflation declined on account of easing of prices of fruits, gur and certain edible oils.

The prices of vegetables, tea, pulses and coconut oil, however, continued to rise during the reporting week. In the non-food category, the prices of steel alloys and aviation turbine fuel too remained firm.

HDFC Bank chief economist Abheek Barua attributed the decline to "direct fiscal steps taken by the government to check prices...Rate of increase in prices in a number of food and manufactured items like edible oil, iron and steel have come down." Part of the decline, he added, could be attributed to base effect as the annual rate of inflation for the corresponding week last year was quite high at 6.44 per cent.

The Reserve Bank, Barua said, may tighten monetary policy by hiking Cash Reserve Ration (CRR) as the inflation rate is still higher than its comfort level of 5 per cent.

RBI is slated to announce its annual credit policy on April 29 amid assurance by Finance Minister P Chidambaram in the Lok Sabha that central bank will assess the situation and take appropriate steps to control money supply.