Inflation further up to 7.55 pc

Inflation further up to 7.55 pc
PRESS TRUST OF INDIA

NOV 26: The annual inflation rate further rose by 0.28 percentage points to 7.55 per cent in the week ended November 11 due to rise in fuel and manufactured products prices.

The point-to-point inflation rate based on wholesale price index (WPI) for all commodities (Base: 1993-94 = 100) increased to over 7.5 per cent from the previous weeks' level of 7.27 per cent and 3.23 per cent a year ago.

The inflation rate was down by a mere 0.01 per cent of an all time high of 7.56 per cent in the last two months. The WPI was up 0.2 per cent to 158.2 from the previous week's level of 157.9 and 147.1 a year ago.

The final WPI during mid-September stood at 154.2 as against the provisional figure of 153.7. The final inflation rate for the week ended September 16 was at 5.91 per cent as against the provisional level of 5.56 per cent.

Fuel prices rose by another 0.3 per cent while prices of manufactured products increased by 0.2 per cent and primary items was cheaper by 0.1 per cent.

In contrast to previous weeks' firm stand, the index for primary articles' group fell to 163.8 from the previous week's level of 164 due to cheaper food items. The index was only 160.6 a year ago.

The food articles' group index fell by 0.3 per cent to 173.5 from the previous week's level of 174.1 due to cheaper tea (eight per cent), beef and buffalo meat (three per cent), milk (two per cent), ragi, masur, fish-marine, pork, and condiments and spices (one per cent each).

However, there was increase in the prices of fish-inland (seven per cent), urad (five per cent), jowar (four per cent), gram and arhar (two per cent each), and maize and eggs (one per cent each).

Non-food articles' group index was up 0.4 per cent to 143.3 from 142.7 a week ago on account of costlier sunflower and fodder (five per cent each), rape and mustard seed (three per cent), raw cotton, raw jute and raw silk (one per cent each).

However, prices fell in the case of skins raw (nine per cent), cotton seed (three per cent), and groundnut seed and kardi seed (one per cent each).

The index for fuel, power, light and lubricants' group continued its rise by another 0.3 per cent to 220.9 from the previous week's 220.2 due to sharp increase of one per cent in electricity price.