Inflation continues downward march

The fall, despite recent hikes in prices of petroleum products and rail freight charges, has been attributed to a slackening of demand in the economy.

Meanwhile, according to the latest figures available, inflation based on the final index remained unchanged at 3.5 per cent for the week ending September 27 compared to the previous week.

In the corresponding week, inflation based on the provisional index also remained unchanged at 3.8 per cent compared to the earlier week. The final index for all commodities for the week stood at 328.1 as against the provisional index of 329.1.

Economists said with polls round the corner, the inflation will look up as the liquidity in the economy goes up. So far except for the group quot;fuel, power, light and, lubricantsquot; which have most of the commodities under administered price mechanism, prices of other two groups 8211; quot;primary articlesquot; and quot;manufactured productsquot; 8211; have been seeking lower level in the past one year. During the year, the prices of primary articles and manufactured products increased by just 1.70 and 2.89 compared to 10.63 per cent increase in fuel, power, light and lubricants.