India's food price inflation falls further to 15.52 per cent

The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index (base: 2004-05 = 100) of 'food articles' in the country stood at 15.52 per cent (provisional) for the week ended 8 January 2010 against 16.91 per cent (provisional) in the previous week.

The fall in food price inflation has been due to lower prices of food articles, mainly fish, chicken, fruits and vegetables, jowar and arhar. 

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 and non-food articles a weight of 4.26 while the fuel and power group has a weight of 14.91.

India's food price inflation stood at 18.62 per cent in the comparable week of the previous year.

Build-up of inflation for the `food articles' group so far during the current financial year (beginning 1 April 2010) was 15.94 per cent against 21.59 per cent in the similar period of the previous year.

The index for the 'food articles' group declined by 1.2 per cent to 190.6 (provisional) from 192.9 (provisional) in the previous week due to lower prices of fish (down 4 per cent), poultry chicken and fruits and vegetables (down 3 per cent each), jowar (down 2 per cent) and arhar (down 1 per cent). However, the prices of rice and masur (up 2 per cent each) and barley and condiments and spices (up 1 per cent each) moved up.