Inflation rises to 4.22%

Meanwhile, the Government has introduced a new wholesale price index series with 1993-94 as the base year giving more weight to the manufactured sector, reflecting the structural changes in economy since 1991.

With the new series, the impact of seasonal variations in agricultural prices on annual inflation would be lesser as the weight of agricultural produce is lower. The earlier WPI series had 1981-82 as the base year.

The revised series coming into effect from April 1 has 435 items with 1,918 price quotations as against 447 items and 2,371 quotations in the previous series.

"All items having large transactions in the economy have been included in the revised series to the extent feasible. And the revised series will have a substantially updated and representative basket of commodities as well as their varieties/grades and markets," an official release said.

Manufactured products account for two third of the total weightage of WPI with 63.75 per cent in the new series as against a weightage of 57.04 enjoyed by the group in the 1981-82 series.

The 1993-94 series has accorded higher weight of 14.23 per cent to the fuel, power, light & lubricants group compared to 10.66 per cent enjoyed by it early. However, the weight of primary articles has been brought down to just 22.02 per cent in the new series from 32.30 in the 1991-82 series.

As per the revised WPI series, provisional annual inflation rate for the week ended April 1 is estimated higher at 4.22 per cent as against 4.16 per cent in the previous week and 3.74 per cent on the old series.

While 136 distinctly new items have been added to the basket of the revised series, 150 items have been dropped from the existing series, leaving 68 per cent of items/commodities as common in the existing and revised series.

Some of the items that have gained maiden entry into the WPI basket are electricity for railway traction, purified terephthalic acid, injection moulded plastic items, oxygen gas in cylinder, railway sleepers, cold-rolled sheets, LPG cylinder, jelly filled telephone cables, colour television sets, computer and computer based systems.

Items that have been dropped from the 1981-82 series include mica, imported petroleum crude, indigenous petroleum crude, khadi, handloom cloth, broad gauge open wagons and wrist watches.

The total number of primary articles in the 1993-94 WPI series has been raised to 98 from 93 under the 1981-82 series while the items under fuel, power, light and lubricant and manufactured products are 318 and 19 compared to 20 and 334 respectively in the old series.

The shift in base year of WPI from 1981-82 to 1993-94 has been made on the basis of recommendation of a Working Group set up by Government under the chairmanship of SR Hashim, a former Planning Commission member.