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Our Bureau

New Delhi, Nov. 20 Even as inflation rates, based on the official wholesale price index (WPI), are coming down, it does not seem to be percolating down to the retail end.

According to the Labour Ministry’s data on Consumer Price Index for Agricultural and Rural Workers, the annual point-to-point inflation rate rose from 10.98 per cent in September to 11.14 per cent in October.

Moreover, the index (base year: 1986-87 = 100) rose in absolute terms from 455 in September to 459 in October.

In contrast, the average provisional WPI inflation rate not only fell from 12.19 per cent in September to 10.98 per cent in October, but even the index (base: 1993-94 = 100) registered an absolute decline from 241.275 to 238.8 during this period.

For the latest week ended November 8, the year-on-year WPI inflation was provisionally estimated at 8.90 per cent, with the index further declining to 235.

In other words, while at a wholesale level, both inflation as well as absolute price levels have come down, it is just the opposite at the consumer level, which in this case happens to be the most vulnerable segment of the country’s population.

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