Inflation up at 5.01 per cent

Costly wheat, fruit, vegetable and other food items pushed up inflation rate to 5.01 per cent during the week ended October 18, although prices of fuel and manufactured products came down. Inflation rate, which once again breached the 5.0 per cent mark from 4.95 per cent in the previous week, was much higher than 3.01 per cent a year ago. Wholesale price index (WPI) based on all commodities, however, remained unchanged at 175.9. The final WPI was at 173.8 during the week-ended August 23, as against the provisional figure of 173.6, while final inflation rate was at 3.82 per cent as against the provisional figure of 3.70 per cent. The overall price level inched up during the week mainly due to 0.8 per cent rise in prices of primary articles although fuel prices were cheaper by 0.7 per cent and manufactured products by 0.1 per cent. The index for primary articles rose 184.1 from 182.7 as food articles became costlier by 1.1 per cent while non-food article prices went up by 0.2 per cent.