Food price inflation shoots up to 17.05%
03 Feb 2011
Food inflation spurted for the second week on rising prices of onions and petrol, swelling up the headline inflation numbers.
The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index of 'food articles' in the country shot up to 17.05 per cent during the week ended 22 January 2010, from 15.57 per cent in the previous week.
Food price inflation in the country was 20.56 per cent during the comparable week of the previous year.
The spike in food price inflation has been due to higher prices of cereals and pulses as also vegetables, fruits and fish, 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 16.91 per cent against 21.00 per cent in the similar period of the previous year.
The index for the 'food articles' group rose 0.7 per cent to 192.2 (provisional) from 190.8 (provisional) during the previous week due to higher prices of arhar (up 4 per cent), masur, condiments and spices, fish, barley and fruits and vegetables (up 2 per cent each) and maize, wheat, jowar, gram, moong and urad (up 1 per cent each). However, the prices of milk (down 1 per cent) declined.
Inflation rate for the 'non-food articles' group was down at 25.09 per cent during the week ended 22 January 2010 from 47.23 per cent during the previous week. It was 12.41 per cent during the comparable week of the previous year.