Food price inflation zooms to 17.47 per cent

The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale price index of food articles climbed 1.89 percentage points and stood at 17.47 per cent during the week ended 21 November 2009, up from 15.58 per cent in the week ended 14 November 2009. The inflation rate for the food articles group stood at 10.75 per cent during the year-ago week.
 
The wholesale price index for the 'food articles' group (base: 1993-94=100) rose 1.0 per cent to 289.2 (provisional) from 286.3 (provisional) in the previous week.

The spike has been due to higher prices of fish-inland  (11 per cent), pork (5 per cent), fish-marine (4 per cent), urad, masur, eggs and moong (2 per cent each) and maize, tea, fruits and vegetables, arhar and gram (1 per cent each).  However, the price of jowar (-2 per cent) declined.

The inflation rate for the major commodity group `primary articles' stood at 12.53 per cent (provisional) for the week ended 21 November 2009 against 11.04 per cent (provisional) in the previous week (ended 14 November 2009) and 11.98 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year (ended 22 November 2008).

The wholesale price index for commodities under the larger group `primary articles', which also includes food articles, rose 0.8 per cent to 281.9 (provisional) during the week from 279.7 (provisional) in the previous week.

The index for the 'non-food articles' group rose 0.3 per cent to 239.5 (provisional) from 238.9 (provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of raw rubber, copra and cotton seed (2 per cent each) and groundnut seed, raw silk and gingelly seed (1 per cent each). However, the prices of fodder (-7 per cent) and castor seed (-3 per cent) declined.

The index for the `fuel, power, light and lubricants' group rose 0.1 per cent to 345.0 (provisional) from 344.7 (provisional) for the week under review due to higher prices of aviation turbine fuel (3 per cent) and furnace oil (1 per cent).

The annual rate of inflation based on the wholesale prices of the `fuel, power, light and lubricants' group stood at 0.00 per cent (nil) during the week against 1.51 per cent in the week ended 14 November 2009 and 5.8 per cent during the comparable week of the previous year.