Consumer price-based inflation jumped to 6.95 per cent in March, mainly on account of costlier food items, according to government data released on Tuesday.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation was 6.07 per cent in February.

The inflation in the food basket was 7.68 per cent in March, up from 5.85 per cent in the preceding month.

It is for the third straight month that the retail inflation remained above the Reserve Bank of India's comfort zone.

RBI, which mainly factors in the retail inflation while arriving at its bi-monthly monetary policy, has been tasked by the government to keep the inflation between 2 and 6 per cent.