Food inflation decelerates to 9.32 per cent for week ended October 14,2011

Food price inflation rose by 9.32 per cent in the week ended 1 October  from a year earlier, though it decelerated from 9.41 per cent recorded a week earlier.

The fuel price index climbed by 15.1 per cent in the year to 1 October, as against 14.69 per cent in the previous week. The primary articles index grew by 10.6 per cent, compared with 10.84 per cent a week earlier.

This was the third straight week that food price inflation stayed above the nine per cent mark. 
 
The Reserve Bank of India has been battling inflation for the past 18 months, raising interest rates successively a dozen times since March 2010.
 
Rates have gone up by 350 basis points. The bank will review its monetary policy on October 25 and is widely expected to go for yet another rate hike.

Duvvuri Subbarao, the governor of the RBI, has reiterated that inflation has to be brought under control before he would consider cutting interest rates. Critics have slammed the central bank for sacrificing growth by raising rates in a futile bid to control inflation.

''We have had 12 rounds of rate revisions since March 2010 to control inflation,'' Subbarao told reporters in Jaipur on Thursday. ''But inflation is still above comfort level, though it has affected production adversely.''

Headline inflation rate was at a year's high of 9.78 per cent in August, as against 9.22 per cent in July.
 
''We have to weigh growth, inflation and factors affecting the economy of our country,'' said Subbarao. The governor argues that though global prices of crude have declined, the deprecation of the rupee has resulted in the net price of crude going up by three per cent.