Food price inflation edges higher to 16.35 per cent

The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index of food articles edged up to 16.35 per cent during the week ended 20 March 2010 from 16.22 per cent during the previous week.

Food price inflation stood at 7.56 per cent in the comparable week a year ago (week ended 21 March 2009).

The build-up of food price inflation so far during the financial year beginning 1 April 2009 was 16.63 per cent compared with 7.23 per cent during the comparable period of the previous year.
 
The index for the 'food articles' group rose 0.6 per cent to 284.7 (provisional) from 283.0 (provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of barley and milk (3 per cent each), moong and condiments and spices (2 per cent each) and urad and arhar (1 per cent each). However, the prices of tea (-10 per cent), fish-marine (-2 per cent) and wheat, fish-inland, masur and gram (-1 per cent each) declined.
 
The inflation rate based on the wholesale price index of non-food articles for the week ended 20 March 2010 stood at 12.57 per cent against 11.06 per cent during the previous week and -1.05 per cent in the comparable week of the previous year.

Built-up inflation for the `non-food articles' group during the financial year so far was -0.57 per cent against 10.33 per cent in the previous week and -0.57per cent in the comparable week of the previous financial year.

 The index for the 'non-food articles' group declined 0.1 per cent to 254.3 (provisional) from 254.6 (provisional) in the previous week, due to lower prices of groundnut seed, linseed and copra (-1 per cent each). However, the prices of raw rubber (4 per cent), mesta (2 per cent) and fodder, gingelly seed and raw silk (1 per cent each) moved up.

The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index for the primary articles group as a whole stood at 13.86 per cent (provisional) for the week ended 20 March 2010 compared with 13.88 per cent (provisional) in the previous week and 5.20 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year (ended 21 March 2009).