India’s food inflation falls sharply to 9.01 per cent

The annual rate of inflation based on food prices in India declined sharply to 9.01 per cent during the week ended 12 November 20110, from 10,63 per cent during the previous week, as prices of most essential commodities eased further.

Although food inflation in the country has been ruling near 10 per cent levels for most of the 2012 fiscal, the recent declining trend seen in food prices has given some hope to policy makers in New Delhi that prices would reach more comfortable levels of 5-6 per cent towards the end of the fiscal.

"If this trend continues for the next two weeks for the month of November, I hope there will be a moderation in inflation," finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said.

The wholesale price-based index stood at 11.38 per cent during the comparable week of the previous year.

Build-up of food inflation so far during the financial year (beginning 1 April 2011) was 10.83 per cent against 10.77 per cent during the similar period of the previous year.

The index for the 'food articles' group declined 0.7 per cent to 198.5 (provisional) during the week ended 12 November 2011 from 199.8 (provisional) during the previous week due to lower prices of poultry chicken (down 6 per cent), bajra and fruits and vegetables (down 2 per cent each) and condiments and spices, urad, fish-fresh water, maize and moong (down 1 per cent each). However, the prices of masur and coffee (up 4 per cent each), tea (up 2 per cent) and barley, ragi, fish-marine, wheat and gram (up 1 per cent each) moved up.