The MPC raised the repo rate by 25 basis points to 5.50% on 7 October and moved its stance to calibrated tightening — the first increase since February 2023, and the end of a cutting cycle that had taken 125 basis points off during 2025. The Governor said a cut is off the table in the near term. Alongside it the RBI put its FY27 growth projection at 7.1% and FY27 inflation at 5.2%.

The data since has gone the Bank's way and then some. September retail inflation came in at 5.54%, up from 4.82% in August and above what the market expected, with food at 7.74%. Wholesale inflation went to 11.39% from 9.92%. Hold those two numbers together, because the gap between them is the one that lands on a manufacturer: costs are rising at eleven per cent and the prices you can pass on are rising at five and a half. That spread — not the repo rate — is what is actually taking your margin.

For a borrower the mechanism matters more than the announcement. A repo-linked loan does not reprice on 7 October; it reprices on its own reset date, which may be up to three months out, and the lender then chooses whether to lengthen the tenor or raise the instalment. On a loan near the end of its term, lengthening quietly fails — there is not enough term left to absorb it — and the instalment jumps instead. Ask which, in writing, before the reset rather than after.

Two prints, three days apart, and together they say more than either does alone. Wholesale inflation came in at 11.39% for September, up from 9.92% in August. Retail came in at 5.54%, up from 4.82%. The wholesale number is now 5.85 percentage points above the retail one. In an ordinary year it sits below. This paper printed the same pair in issue 07 at 9.92% against 4.82% — a gap of 5.10 points — and said then that the gap was the margin. Both legs have since risen and the gap has widened by three-quarters of a point.

Where the 5.85 points are being absorbed is the question that decides what you do about it, and the breakdown answers it. Fuel and power ran at 25.85% — the input shock, and not news. The line that is news is manufactured products at 9.76%, the highest in the series. That is the factory gate, and it means the manufacturer has passed a great deal of the cost on. Retail at 5.54% means the shelf has not. So the compression this quarter is not sitting where it sat in July. It has moved down the chain, onto whoever stands between the wholesale price and the customer — the trader, the distributor, the shop.

That also explains the one number in the week that looks out of place. CPI food ran at 7.74% while WPI food ran at 8.66% — the two are close, and food is the one category where the pass-through is nearly complete, because nobody holds a tomato to protect a price list. Rural inflation at 6.08% against urban at 4.88% says the same thing from the demand side: the household with the least room is the one already paying the full increase. If your customers are rural and your inputs are manufactured, both halves of the squeeze are yours this quarter.

Those dates have passed, and the paper that printed them owes you the next sentence rather than a second copy of the first. The 500-plus plot e-auction closed its online applications and earnest money on 13 and 14 October, at 6 p.m., and the direct-allotment window for RR MoU holders shut on the 12th. If you arranged the EMD after reading issue 09, you are in the auction. If you did not, no amount of reading will put you in it, and the useful question is what is still allottable in Jaipur this month without a fresh notice.

The answer is the Sitapura Flatted Factory Complex, and it is a different instrument from a plot. The modules there are being allotted by e-auction on a licence-fee basis — you are bidding for the right to occupy, not buying land — and they are plug-and-play, built for garments, gems and jewellery, and IT. Those are the three sectors most of this paper's Jaipur readers are actually in. The capital shape is the reason to look: no land payment, no construction year, a monthly outgo instead of a locked deposit, which is a sensible structure for a unit testing a second line rather than committing to one.

One figure from the completed round is worth keeping, because it is the only honest guide to what this land clears at: RIICO's auctions fetched ₹569 crore from 128 investors. Divide it and the average is a little over ₹4.4 crore per successful bidder — which tells you that the clearing bids are not coming from first-time small units, whatever the reserve price says. Read it before the next notice, not after. RIICO has also approved a direct land allotment scheme intended to speed up affordable allotment, which is the route to ask about if the auction route keeps clearing above your number.