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New Delhi: India's headline inflation would fall below the 10 per cent mark by the end of this financial year, a leading economist and planning strategist said today. "Inflation is expected to moderate below the double-digit mark by the end of the current fiscal," Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia said, on the sidelines of a health summit of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.

Ahluwalia has maintained that inflation was a short-term challenge and would be able to slow down the pace of the economy's growth to 8 per cent or marginally less in the current fiscal. He said the softening of crude prices in the international market was a "welcome development", and hoped that the domestic price situation would stabilise in due course.

Brent crude is down to $118 a barrel, a big relief to countries like India, which imports around 70 per cent of the oil it consumes. India's headline inflation for the week ended July 19 touched a 13-year high at 11.98 per cent as compared to 11.89 per cent for the week before.

Ahluwalia's assessment for inflation to moderate by the year-end was in consonance with Finance Minister P Chidambaram's view that inflation would start moderating after six to nine months. At a closed-door Congress party orientation programme on Wednesday, Chidambaram had said the government had taken measures to contain inflation which would yield results in another six to nine months.(IANS)