India's food price inflation declines to 10.39 per cent

Food price inflation in the country, after edging higher over the past two weeks, declined to 10.39 per cent during the week ended 19 February 2011, from 11.49 per cent in the previous week.

Food price inflation in the country stood at 21.62 per cent during the comparable week of the previous year.

The decline in food price inflation during the week has been due to lower prices of fruits and vegetables, pulses, cereals, egg as also condiments and spices.

Food articles have a weight of 14.34 in the wholesale price index (WPI) of commodities while primary articles have a weight of 20.12, non-food articles a weight of 4.26 and fuel and power group a weight of 14.91.

Build-up of inflation for the `food articles' group so far during the current financial year (beginning 1 April 2010), however, was lower at 9.18 per cent against 19.82 per cent in the similar period of the previous year.

The index for the 'food articles' group declined 1.6 per cent to 179.5 (provisional) from 182.4 (provisional) in the previous week due to lower prices of egg (down 5 per cent), urad (down 3 per cent), fruits and vegetables, bajra, jowar and ragi (down 2 per cent each) and wheat, condiments and spices, moong, barley and gram (down 1 per cent each). However, the prices of poultry chicken and maize (up 2 per cent each) and rice, arhar and fish-marine (up 1 per cent each) moved up.