Inflation inches up to 5.14 per cent

NEW DELHI, MAR 7: Spurred by increase in prices of non-food articles the annual rate of inflation crossed the five per cent mark to touch 5.14 per cent, registering an increase of 0.25 per cent for the week ended February 20. Inflation, based on the wholesale price index (WPI), stood at 5.14 per cent (provisional) compared to 4.89 per cent (P) in the previous week and 4.73 per cent in the corresponding week of last year. The rate of inflation rose by about 0.56 percentage points during the last three weeks mainly on account of an increase in administered price of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and non-food articles like natural rubber and groundnut seeds.

Annual inflation, which has been rising ever since it touched a 56-week low of 4.43 per cent for the week ended January nine, is likely to keep its upward movement in the coming weeks as the impact of hikes in rail freight charges and other budgetary proposals come into effect. During the current week, the index for "all commodities" (base:1981-82100) wasdown 0.1 percentage at 354.1 from the the previous week’s level of 354.2 (P).

Meanwhile, inflation based on final WPI data for the week ended December 26, stood at 5.3 per cent compared to 5.9 per cent for the week calculated provisionally. Though the inflation based on WPI was marginally up at 5.14 per cent, rate of increase in prices based on consumer price index for industrial workers (CPI-IW) for the first time in nine months, fell to single digit levels in January to 9.4 per cent from 15.3 per cent in the previous month. During the current week, indices of manufactured products, non-food articles and textiles rose marginally, while index of "food articles" declined marginally from WPI. Among the various items in WPI, prices of jowar (up 5 per cent), barley (up four per cent) raw rubber (up 5 per cent), moong (down 4 per cent), linseed (down 6 per cent) changed substantially during the week.