India's food price inflation declines to single digit at 9.52 per cent

Food price inflation in the country, which resumed its declining trend during the latter half of February 2011, declined further and stood at 9.52 per cent during the week ended 26 February 2011 from 10.39 per cent in the previous week.

Food price inflation in the country stood at 22.02 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 condiments and spices, fruits and vegetables, some pulses and cereals.

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) was also lower at 8.52 per cent against 20.04 per cent in the similar period of the previous year.

The index for the 'food articles' group declined 0.6 per cent to 178.4 (provisional) during the week ended 26 February 2011 from 179.5 (provisional) in the previous week, due to lower prices of condiments and spices (down 7 per cent), fruits and vegetables and masur (down 2 per cent each) and rice, barley, moong, gram and arhar (down 1 per cent each).  However, the prices of egg, fish-marine, bajra, fish-inland, poultry chicken and jowar (up 2 per cent each) and maize, milk and tea (up 1 per cent each) moved up.