Food inflation moderates to 9.03% for week ended August 6

18 Aug 2011 Evaluate

India’s weekly food inflation measured by the wholesale price index moderated to 9.03% for the week ended August 6, from 9.90% in the previous week, which was at four and half month high level. This moderation in food inflation is due to decline in prices of food items such as wheat, pulses, milk, egg, meat and fish and vegetables.

According to the data released by Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the index for Food Articles group declined by 1.7% to 191.9 (Provisional) from 195.3 (Provisional) for the previous week due to lower prices of fruits and vegetables and fish-marine (5% each), fish-inland (4%), urad, bajra and arhar (2% each) and wheat and moong (1% each).  However, the prices of ragi (5%), gram and maize (2% each) and jowar (1%) moved up.

The index for Non-Food Articles group rose by 1.5% to 178.4 (Provisional) from 175.8 (Provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of flowers, raw cotton and safflower (7% each), gingelly seed, cotton seed and linseed (2% each) and soyabean and castor seed (1% each).  However, the prices of sunflower (4%), niger seed (3%), groundnut seed (2%) and gaur seed (1%) declined.

As a result, the index for primary articles group which has the highest weightage of 20.12% in WPI declined by 0.9% to 197.5 (Provisional) from 199.3 (Provisional) for the previous week. The annual rate of inflation, calculated on point to point basis, stood at 11.64% (Provisional) for the week ended August 6 compared to 12.22% (Provisional) for the previous week.

Meanwhile, the index for Fuel & Power group which has the weightage of 14.91% in WPI rose by 0.9% to 167.2 (Provisional) from 165.7 (Provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of furnace oil (7%), naphtha (5%), light diesel oil (4%), aviation turbine fuel (3%) and bitumen (2%). The annual rate of inflation, calculated on point to point basis, stood at 13.13% (Provisional) for the week ended August 6 as compared to 12.19% (Provisional) for the previous week.

India's central bank has raised interest rates 11 times since March 2010 to tame headline inflation, which stood at 9.22% in July from 9.44% in June. Although the headline inflation numbers for July have shown signs of moderation, the central bank is unlikely to take a breather on its monetary tightening policy as there is no respite in the rate of price rise. On the other hand, food inflation has declined for the week under observation. However, the numbers are still above RBI’s comfort zone, which paves way for RBI to continue its anti-inflationary stance. Last week RBI Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said it was important to bring down inflation to sustain growth and that it was too early to signal a change in monetary stance, suggesting the central bank may not be done with monetary tightening.

© 2025 The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd. All rights reserved. MoneyWorks4Me ® is a registered trademark of The Alchemists Ark Pvt. Ltd.

×