Consumer price inflation down at 9.13% in December

The consumer price inflation based on the consumer price index numbers for industrial workers (CPI-IW) stood lower at 9.13 per cent in December 2013 compared to 11.47 per cent during the previous month and 11.17 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year, mainly due to a decline in food prices.

Food inflation based on the CPI-IW also stood lower at 11.49 per cent in December 2013 against 16.17 per cent in the previous month and 13.53 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year, data released by the labour ministry showed.

The all-India CPI-IW for December 2013 declined by 4 points to 239 year-on-yaer and by 1.65 per cent between November and December compared with the rise of 0.46 per cent between the same two months a year ago.

The largest downward pressure to the change in current index came from the food group contributing -4.96 percentage points to the total change.

At item level, onion, ginger, green chillies, brinjal, cauliflower, cabbage, peas, tomato, potato and other vegetables, sugar etc were responsible for the decrease in index. However, this was offset to some extent by high prices of fish, eggs, hen, poultry, milk, ghee, garlic, firewood, ESI contribution, etc.  

At centre level, Giridih recorded the highest decline of 12 points, followed by Ahmedabad, Chhindwara, Varanasi, Munger, Jamalpur, Nagpur and Bhavnagar (10 points each), Jamshedpur (9 points), Rourkela, Ludhiana, Tripura and Angul Talcher (8 points each). Among others, 7 points decrease was registered in 9 centres, 6 points in 8 centres, 5 points in 11 centres, 4 points in 8 centres, 3 points in 7 centres, 2 points in 9 centres and 1 point in 7 centres.

On the contrary, Sholapur centre reported an increase of 4 points, followed by Puducherry (2 points), Coimbatore and Srinagar centres 1 point each.

The indices of the other three centres' remained stationary.

The indices of 37 centres were above all-India index while indices of 58 other centres were below national average. The index for Varanasi and Vijaywada centre remained at par with all-India index.