Inflation crosses 7 per cent mark

Inflation crosses 7 per cent mark
AGENCIES

NEW DELHI, OCT 15: The annual rate of inflation crossed the seven per cent mark for the week ended September 30, touching 7.56 per cent mainly due to steep rise in prices of fuel, power, light and lubricants.

The point-to-point inflation rate based on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for all commodities (Base: 1993-94 = 100) rose by 1.50 percentage points from 6.06 (provisional) in the previous week. It was, however, only 2.97 per cent during the same week a year ago.

The WPI rose by 1.6 per cent to 156.5 during the week from the previous level of 154 and 145.5 for the corresponding period of last year. The final WPI for the week ended August 5 stood at 153.4 as against the provisional figure of 152.6 points. The inflation rate, based on the final WPI, was 6.31 in end August as compared to 5.75 per cent based on the provisional index.

A 0.2 per cent fall in the index for primary articles was almost nullified by a 8.8 per cent increase in the index for fuel, power, light and lubricants and 0.1 per cent increase in the index for manufactured products.