The Hindu Business Line : Costlier food pushes up inflation rate

Cheap & costly
Prices higher for broad gauge passenger carriage (14%) & other coach vehicles (7%).
Rates down for moong (5%), mutton (4%), eggs (2%) & urad (1%).

Our Bureau

New Delhi, August 24 The annual wholesale price index-based inflation rose 4.10 per cent during the week ended August 11, marginally higher than the previous week’s annual rise of 4.05 per cent. The rise in the year-on-year inflation rate was mainly due to higher food, including fruit and vegetables products, and manufactured product prices, data issued by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed on Friday. The annual rate of inflation stood at 5.07 per cent during the corresponding week a year ago.

Primary Articles

On a disaggregated basis, the primary articles’ group index rose 0.4 per cent to 223.5 points during the latest reported week, up from 222.5 points for the previous week. The index for the food articles’ group rose 0.7 per cent to 221.8 points due to higher prices of fruits and vegetables (4 per cent ), bajra (3 per cent ), masur (2 per cent ) and gram (1 per cent ). However, the prices of moong (5 per cent ), mutton (4 per cent ), eggs (2 per cent ) and urad (1 per cent ) declined. The index for “non-food articles” group declined by 0.1 per cent to 210.0 points from 210.3 points for the previous week, due to lower prices of groundnut seed (2 per cent ). However, raw rubber (5 per cent ), nigerseed (3 per cent ) and sunflower (1 per cent ) prices moved up.

The fuel, power, light and lubricants’ group remained unchanged at its previous week’s level of 322.1 points.

Manufactured goods

The heavy-weight manufactured products’ group index rose by 0.1 per cent to 185.7 points, with paper, chemicals, transport equipment and cement turning dearer during the latest week.

The index for the paper and paper products’ group rose by 0.5 per cent to 194.1 points due to higher prices of kraft paper (4 per cent ) and poster paper (2 per cent ).

The index for chemicals and chemical products’ group rose marginally to 201.9 points from 201.8 points for the previous week due to higher prices of liquid chlorine (3 per cent ) and caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) and calcium ammonium nitrate n-content (1 per cent each). However, the prices of varnishes (1 per cent) declined.

Non-metallic

The index for ‘non-metallic mineral products’ group rose by 0.1 per cent due to a rise in the prices of cement. The index for transport equipment and parts’ group rose by 0.4 per cent to 164.7 points due to higher prices of broad gauge passenger carriage (14 per cent) and broad gauge other coaching vehicles (7 per cent ).

The index for textiles’ group declined by 0.1 per cent to 132.6 points due to lower prices of polyster yarn (4 per cent), polyster staple fibre (3 per cent ) and cotton yarn-hanks (1 per cent ). However, the prices of texturised yarn (3 per cent) and cotton yarn-cones, hessian and sacking bags and hessian cloth (1 per cent each) moved up.

Metals & alloys

The index for the ‘base metals alloys and metal products’ group declined marginally to 243.7 points, from 243.8 points for the previous week, due to lower prices of zinc ingots (2 per cent ) and lead ingots (1 per cent ). The index for the machinery and machine tools’ group declined by 0.2 per cent to 165.6 points, from 165.9 points for the previous week, due to lower prices of electronic equipment (9 per cent ).

For the week ended June 16, the final WPI stood revised at 211.9 points, as compared to 211.7 points estimated provisionally, and annual rate of inflation based on final index, calculated on point to point basis, stood at 4.13 per cent as compared to 4.03 per cent points estimated provisionally.

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