Inflation fell to 33-week low of 5.42 per cent for the week ended January 15 mainly due to lower prices of essential items like vegetables, fruits, tea, edible oil and naphtha. WPI-based inflation fell by 0.18 during the week from 5.6 per cent in the previous week.However, the government is keeping its fingers crossed over the future trend in inflation as global oil prices continue to be volatile. In fact, some of the key industrial items like cement, furnace oil, steel sheets, copper wires and electric motors saw a rise in prices.The government revised the index downward to 189.9 from the provisional figure of 190.1 during the week ended November 20, while inflation stood corrected at 7.23 per cent against the provisional 7.34 per cent. The general price level declined slightly during the week due to a 0.2 per cent fall in the prices of primary articles and a marginal fall in fuel prices, but manufactured products were costlier by 0.1 per cent.The price index for fuel, power,light and lubricants group dipped marginally to 288 due to a 1 per cent fall in naphtha prices, although furnace oil became costlier by 1 per cent. Primary articles index declined to 185.5 during the week from 185.9 last week.
