The Centre on Thursday released truncated data for April wholesale price-based inflation given that there were limited transactions of products in the market due to the Covid-19 induced lockdown.

India’s WPI food index —comprising ‘food articles’ from the primary articles group and ‘food products’ from manufactured products group— inflation declined to 3.6 per cent in April from 5.49 per cent in March, official data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry showed.

The wholesale price index (WPI) deflation in primary articles stood at 0.79 per cent in April, as against inflation of 3.72 per cent in March 2019.

Fuel and power segment saw a deflation of 10.12 per cent in April 2020 as against a deflation of 1.76 per cent in March, an official release said.

“In view of the limited transactions of products in the wholesale market in April 2020, due to the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, it has been decided to release the price movement of selected sub-groups/ groups of WPI, following the principle of adequacy”, the release added.

All commodities WPI could not be computed for April 2020 due to non-availability of manufactured product group index, the release said. It said the price indices of primary articles have been computed based on mandi prices of agricultural items, ex-mine prices of minerals and price of crude petroleum and natural gas.

About inflation in manufactured products, the Commerce and industry ministry said given the preventive measures and announcements of nationwide lockdown by the government to contain the spread of Covid-19, the price collection of manufactured products through personal visits of price collectors was suspended with effect from March 19.

Earlier this week, the National Statistical Office (NSO) had deferred the release of retail or consumer price index-based inflation for April as the nationwide lockdown had prevented officials from collecting price data at various centres.

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