India's food price inflation shoots up to 8.55 per cent

Food price inflation in the country reversed its declining trend and shot up to 8.55 per cent during the week ended 14 May 2011, from 7.47 per cent in the previous week, as food prices spurted again after a brief lull.

The increase in inflation by more than a percentage point after three weeks of decline is likely to build up pressure on an already high non-food and primary product prices, which would, in turn, push up manufacturing prices.

Food price inflation in the country stood at 21.55 per cent during the comparable week of the previous year.

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 2011) was 4.01 per cent against 4.62 per cent in the similar period of the previous year.

The index for the 'food articles' group rose 0.6 per cent to 186.7 (provisional) from 185.5 (provisional) in the previous week due to higher prices of poultry chicken (up 5 per cent), jowar (up 4 per cent), fish-marine (up 3 per cent), mutton, barley and maize (up 2 per cent each) and milk (up 1 per cent). However, the prices of tea (down 5 per cent), arhar and ragi (down 2 per cent each) and masur and urad (down 1 per cent each) declined.