Food price inflation rate nose-dives to 13.05 per cent

Food price inflation in the country reversed its rising trend, helped in large measure by plummeting vegetable prices, and nose-dived by almost 4 percentage points to 13.07 per cent during the week ended 29 January 2011, from 17.05 per cent in the earlier week.
 
The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index of 'food articles' stood at 13.05 per cent during the week ended 29 January 2011, against 17.05 per cent in the previous week.

Food price inflation in the country was 22.08 per cent during the comparable week of the previous year.

The decline in food prices during the week has been due to a fall in the prices of fruits and vegetables, which fell 11 per cent. Moong prices were down 4 per cent, condiments and spices were cheaper by 3 per cent while prices of jowar and masur were down 1 per cent each, an official release said.

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 13.69 per cent against 21.81 per cent in the similar period of the previous year.

The index for the 'food articles' group declined 2.8 per cent to 186.9 (provisional) during the week ended 29 January 2011 from 192.2 (provisional) in the previous week due to lower prices of fruits and vegetables (down 11 per cent), moong (down 4 per cent), condiments and spices (down 3 per cent) and jowar and masur (down 1 per cent each).  However, the prices of fish-marine (up 7 per cent), arhar (up 4 per cent) and barley and gram (up 3 per cent each) moved up.