After rising for two weeks, inflation dipped to 5.07 per cent due to falling prices of fruit and vegetables and manufactured goods, making room for cuts in policy rates by the Reserve Bank to boost industry.
Inflation slipped by 0.57 percentage points for the week ended January 24 from 5.64 in the previous week. It was 4.78 per cent a year ago.
In the primary articles group, the prices of fruit, vegetables and bajra declined by two per cent each, while coffee became cheaper by one per cent. Also, raw rubber, groundnut seed and gingelly seed became cheaper by 6 per cent, 3 per cent and one per cent, respectively.
The prices of steel ingots, aluminium products and bars and rods too declined during the week.
The index of manufactured products dropped by 0.5 per cent due to fall in prices of rice bran oil, khandsari and coffee powder.
The index for the textile group too declined by 0.1 per cent due to lower prices of woollen cloth, sacking bags and hessian cloth.
The fuel index, however, rose by 0.6 per cent due to higher prices of naphtha (15 per cent), furnace oil (2 per cent) and light diesel oil (2 per cent).
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