The Hindu Business Line : Inflation falls a tad on dip in food prices

THE annual wholesale price index-based inflation eased marginally by 0.06 per cent to 5.61 per cent during the week ended May 7, from the previous week's level of 5.67 per cent.

The dip in the year-on-year inflation was mainly due to a fall in prices of food and manufactured products, according to data released here today by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

During the latest reported week, the WPI fell by 0.1 per cent to 192 points due to drop in the index of primary articles and manufactured products, even as fuel prices remained unchanged. The index stood at 181.8 points a year ago.

On a disaggregated basis, the index of Primary Articles' group was down 0.1 per cent to 188.4 points due to fall in the prices of food and non-food articles.

The Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants' group index remained firm for the second consecutive week at 293.2 points, while the index of Manufactured Products' group declined by 0.1 per cent to 170.6 points due to lower prices for food items, chemicals and non-metallic minerals.

In case of Primary Articles', the Food Articles' group index was down 0.1 per cent to 190.2 points due to one per cent fall each in the case of barley, condiments and spices, maize, jowar and bajra. Prices, however, rose for fish-marine (two per cent) and masur, ragi, gram and urad (one per cent each).

The index of Non-Food Articles' group fell by 0.1 per cent to 179.2 points due to cheaper fodder (nine per cent), safflower (three per cent), gingelly seed and raw silk (two per cent each) and sunflower, raw tobacco and linseed (one per cent each).

But prices rose for raw rubber (four per cent) and raw jute and castor seed (one per cent each).

Among the Manufactured Products, the Food Products' group index fell by 0.5 per cent to 173.8 points due to cheaper oil cakes (three per cent), butter (two per cent) and maida, sooji, atta and bran (one per cent each), but rice bran oil, gur and rape and mustard oil became costlier by one per cent each.

A three per cent hike in the prices of beer and alcohol pushed up the Beverages Tobacco and Tobacco Products' group index by 0.1 per cent to 222.1 points.

The textiles' group index rose by 0.5 per cent to 131.8 points due to higher prices of synthetic yarn (four per cent) and polyester staple fibre and cotton yarn-cones (one per cent each), even as other cotton yarn and texturised yarn prices fell by one per cent. A one per cent spurt in the prices of poster paper pushed up the Paper and Paper Products' group index by 0.1 per cent to 177.6 points.

The Chemicals and Chemical Products' group index declined by 0.4 per cent to 186.6 points as prices fell for benzene (eight per cent), purified terephthalic acid (seven per cent), phenol (three per cent) and acid and liquid oral other than vitamins (one per cent each). A one per cent dip in cement prices led to 0.3 per cent fall in the Non-Metallic Mineral Products' group index to 168.3 points. The Machine and Machine Tools' group index was up by 0.1 per cent to 144.9 points due to higher prices of material handling equipment (seven per cent) and electrical generators and power driven pumps (one per cent each).

The Government also revised upwards inflation to 5.40 per cent during the week ended March 12, as compared to the provisional estimate of 5.23 per cent.

The WPI stood corrected at 189.4 points during the second week of March against provisional level of 189.1 points.

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