Inflation continued its double-digit rally today as the provisional annual rate of inflation inched up to 12.63 per cent in the week ended August 9 as against an inflation rate of 12.44 per cent in the previous week. This is the tenth week in a row that inflation has remained in the double-digit bracket. The inflation rate for the corresponding period last year was 4.24 per cent.

On a weekly basis, however, the upward movement of prices was marginal as the wholesale price index (WPI), which is the basis for measuring inflation, rose only 0.12 per cent to 240.7, up from previous week's figure of 240.4. Last week, the inflation rate had witnessed one of the sharpest jumps in the past few weeks when it had gone up straight from 12.01 to 12.44.

Almost immediately after the data was released, the finance ministry issued a statement saying that “prices of essential commodities such as food grains, edible oils, vegetables, dairy products and some other commodities including kerosene, soap and safety matches have more or less stabilised”. The annual inflation rate for these 30 essential commodities stood at 6.74 per cent as against 6.54 per cent in the previous week.

The statement went on to highlight the fact that the prices of a majority of commodities in all the major groups have either declined or remained unchanged. The index for the ‘primary articles’ group rose very marginally to 249.6 from 249.5 while that for the fuel group remained unchanged at 380.4. It was only the ‘manufacturing products’ group that witnessed a significant rise in prices of 0.2 per cent.

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