Bucking the declining trend seen for two consecutive weeks, food inflation showed a minor uptick, with vegetables, dairy items and poultry products mainly to blame.

Food inflation, based on the annual Wholesale Price Index, rose 15.57 per cent for the week ended January 15, higher than the previous week's annual rise of 15.52 per cent.

Fuel index

The fuel index climbed 10.87 per cent, lower than the previous week's reported estimate of 11.53 per cent, Government data released on Thursday showed.

The primary articles price index was up 17.26 per cent in the latest week, compared with an annual rise of 17.03 per cent a week earlier, according to the data.

The latest surge in the food inflation estimates is likely to put further pressure on the Government to rein in prices of staple food items.

The Centre has already adopted measures such as an export ban on onions to make the vegetable more affordable.

During the latest week under review, vegetable prices surged by 67 per cent on an annual basis. Onions were up 112 per cent on a year-on-year basis, fruits shot up by 16 per cent, while milk was up 12 per cent. Prices of egg, meat and fish went up by 14 per cent year-on-year.

Cereal up

Cereal prices, too, went up marginally by 0.53 per cent, with rice going up by 3 per cent.

However, wheat and pulses became cheaper on annual basis by 6 per cent and 14 per cent, respectively.

In the non-food category, inflation in the fibres and mineral categories were up 47 per cent and 20 per cent respectively.

The headline inflation for December had risen to 8.43 per cent, up from 7.48 per cent in the previous month, mainly driven by costly food items.

At its quarterly review earlier this week, the RBI had revised its headline inflation estimate to 7 per cent by end of March, up from the earlier estimate of 5.5 per cent.

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