The Hindu Business Line : Inflation rate dips to 5.95% on cheaper food items

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New Delhi Jan. 25 The annual wholesale price index-based inflation rose 5.95 per cent during the week ended January 13, slower than the previous week's annual rise of 6.12 per cent.

Dearer primary articles

The year-on-year inflation rate continued to hover around the 6 per cent mark primarily on account of a rise in prices of items coming under the primary articles group and some manufactured product items, including metals and non-metallic mineral products.

During the latest reported week, the WPI rose to 208.3 points from 208.2 points during the previous week. WPI was at 196.6 points a year ago while inflation was at 4.19 per cent during the corresponding week a year ago.

On a disaggregated basis, the Primary Articles' group ended the latest week at 213.2 points, up 9.28 per cent. The manufactured products' group was up 5.59 per cent at 181.2 points while the fuel, power, light and lubricants' group was up 3.70 per cent at 322.3 points.

Among the Primary Articles' group, the index for `Food Articles' group declined on a week-on-week basis due to lower prices of urad, fruits and vegetables and bajra and arhar and gram. However, the prices of barley, moong, condiments and spices and fish-marine moved up.

Raw rubber higher

The index for `Non-Food Articles' group rose 1.4 per cent due to higher prices of raw rubber, raw silk and groundnut seed, linseed and raw cotton and niger seed, rape and mustard seed and sunflower.

Among the Manufactured Products' group, food items such as rice bran oil fell by four per cent and oil cakes, gur, sugar and imported edible oil by one per cent each. However, the prices of unrefined oil moved up.

Cement prices fell marginally and edible oils by 0.2 per cent. Among metals, prices of base metals alloys declined 0.2 per cent, but non-ferrous metals became expensive.

Steel strips lower

Prices of aluminium extrusion moved up seven per cent, aluminium ingots by six per cent, other aluminium material by three per cent and aluminium products by two per dent. However, prices of narrow steel strips fell 10 per cent, zinc ingots by five per cent and lead ingots by two per cent.

Epoxy resins became dearer by 44 per cent, benzene by 11 per cent, electric motors by six per cent and cigarettes by three per cent.

Inflation has been revised to 5.56 per cent for the week ended November 18, against the provisional estimate of 5.45 per cent.

The revision is based on final numbers for WPI, which was revised to 209 points against the provisional estimate of 208.8 points.