Buoyed by the steep decline in food prices, Chief Economic Advisor Kaushik Basu said food inflation may go down below 3 per cent in a month's time. "I expect by the first week of January food inflation will go down below 3 per cent."

The latest weekly food inflation number is the lowest since the week ended February 23, 2008, when it was 4.28 per cent.

Food inflation stood at 6.6 per cent in the previous week and 10.78 per cent in the corresponding period last year. Experts hope that the softening food prices, along with moderation in headline inflation, will have a sobering effect on the Reserve Bank of India, which has adopted a tight monetary policy stance since March 2010 to check price rise.