India's food price inflation back in double digit at 10.05 per cent

Food price inflation in the country, which showed a declining trend in the first three weeks of March, reversed the trend and shot up to 10.05 per cent during the week ended 12 March 2011 from 9.42 per cent in the previous week.

Food price inflation in the country stood at 20.62 per cent during the comparable week of the previous year.

The spike in inflation rate has been due to higher prices of chicken, fruits and vegetables and some cereals like barley and jower and pulses like masur and gram.

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 also lower at 9.25 per cent against 20.27 per cent in the similar period of the previous year.

The index for the 'food articles' group rose 0.4 per cent to 179.6 (provisional) from 178.8 (provisional) in the previous week due to higher prices of poultry chicken, fruits and vegetables and barley (up 2 per cent each) and masur, jowar and gram (up 1 per cent each). However, the prices of tea (down 7 per cent), ragi (down 2 per cent) and condiments and spices, moong and egg (down 1 per cent each) declined.