The Hindu Business Line : Fruits, vegetables pull inflation to 2-month low

The dip in the year-on-year inflation was mainly on account of last year's high base, combined with a fall in prices of pulses, fruits and vegetables during the latest reported week, according to data released here today by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

Inflation was as high as 5.61 per cent during the corresponding period last year. During the latest reported week, the WPI rose by 0.1 per cent to 192.2 points, even as prices of fuel products remained unchanged, according to the data.

On a disaggregated basis, the index of the Primary Articles' group was up 0.2 per cent to 189.1 points due to costlier food and non-food items. The Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants' group index remained unchanged at the previous week's level of 293.1 points. The index of the Manufactured Products' group rose 0.1 per cent to 170.7 points due to costlier food products, textiles, chemicals, non-metallic minerals and machinery.

Among the Primary Articles' group, the Food Articles' group index rose by 0.3 per cent to 191.1 points due to higher prices of beef and buffalo meat (13 per cent), poultry chicken (7 per cent), fish and urad (4 per cent each), moong (2 per cent) and milk, jowar and wheat (1 per cent each). However, there was a decline in prices of masur (5 per cent), fruits (4 per cent), bajra (2 per cent), arhar, maize and condiments and spices (1 per cent each).

The index of the Non-Food Articles' group was up by 0.2 per cent to 179.5 points due to costlier raw rubber (3 per cent), fodder (2 per cent) and groundnut seed, gingili seed, cottonseed and raw jute (1 per cent each).

There was a fall in prices of coir fibre (19 per cent), raw silk (2 per cent) and copra, castor seed and tobacco (1 per cent each).

Among the Manufactured Products' group, the Food Products group index was up by 0.1 per cent to 173.8 points owing to an increase in prices of skimmed milk powder and gur (3 per cent each), unrefined oil (2 per cent), rice bran oil and oil cakes (1 per cent each). But prices fell for gingili oil (2 per cent) and sugar (1 per cent). A 1 per cent increase in the prices of hessian cloth and hessian and sacking bags pushed up the Textiles' group index by 0.1 per cent to 131.5 points.

The Chemicals and Chemical Products' group index was up by 0.1 per cent to 186.7 points due to costlier liquid chlorine (7 per cent) and acid and soda ash (1 per cent each). A 3 per cent spurt in ceramic tiles prices pushed up the index for the Non-Metallic Mineral Products group by 0.1 per cent to 168.7 points, even as building bricks became cheaper by 6 per cent.

The basic Metals Alloys and Metal Products' group index fell by 0.3 per cent to 221.4 points due to lower prices of basic pig iron and foundry pig iron (3 per cent each), and other iron steel (2 per cent each) and steel sheets, plates and strips (1 per cent each). The Government also revised upwards inflation to 5.70 per cent during the week ended April 2 as compared with the provisional estimate of 5.26 per cent. WPI stood corrected at 191 points during the first week of this fiscal against provisional level of 190.2 points.

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