Food price inflation nudges closer to 18 per cent

The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index of food articles (base: 1993-94=100) firmed up further to 17.97 per cent during the week ended 6 February 2010, from 17.94 per cent during the previous week, as prices continued to rise for the fourth week in succession.

Food price inflation stood at 9.82 per cent in the comparable week a year ago (week ended 7 January 2009).

The build-up of food price inflation so far during the financial year beginning 1 April 2009 was 17.78 per cent compared with 6.79 per cent during the comparable period of the previous year.

The index for the 'food articles' group rose 0.1 per cent to 287.5 (provisional) from 287.3 (provisional) in the previous week due to higher prices of moong and poultry chicken (3 per cent each), fish-marine (2 per cent) and barley and wheat (1 per cent each). However, the prices of urad (-4 per cent), arhar (-2 per cent) and eggs, gram, fish-inland and masur (-1 per cent each) declined.

The index for the 'non-food articles' group rose 0.7 per cent to 257.3 (provisional) from 255.6 (provisional) in the previous week due to higher prices of groundnut seed (5 per cent), niger seed (3 per cent) and raw rubber (1 per cent). However, the prices of tobacco (-4 per cent) and raw cotton and mesta (-1 per cent each) declined.

The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index for the `primary articles' group as a whole stood at 16.23 per cent (provisional) during the week against 15.75 per cent (provisional) in the previous week and 7.05 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year (ended 7 February 2009).