Inflation rises to 6.09%

Increasing prices of commodities, notably diesel and petrol, pushed up inflation to a 35-week high of 6.09 per cent in the first week of the fourth quarter this fiscal as compared to 3.78 per cent in the year-ago period.

The wholesale price index inflation rose for the eighth consecutive week for the period ended January 3, by another 0.34 per cent from the week-ago level of 5.75 per cent, even as the Reserve Bank of India hoped it will soon taper off.

The highest level so far recorded in this fiscal was 6.47 per cent during the week ended April 12.

The buoyant growth in the second quarter of this fiscal did not have any impact on the current trends in inflation, analysts told PTI.

The WPI rose by 0.6 per cent to 177.7 points in the latest reported week with indices of all the major groups -- primary articles, fuel and manufactured products -- moving upwards and the index was 167.5 points in the previous year period.

The government revised upwards the point-to-point inflation to 5.18 per cent for the week ended November 8 as compared to the provisional figure of 4.88 per cent.

The final WPI stood corrected at 176.6 points during the beginning of November as against the provisional level of 176.1 points.

The index of mass-consumption primary articles' group was up by 0.7 per cent to 181.2 points due to a sharp over one per cent rise in the price of non-food articles and a substantial hike in the price of food articles. The index was 172.9 points in the previous year period.

Fuel, power, light and lubricants' group index soared by 1.5 per cent to 262.2 points owing to costlier high speed diesel oil (six per cent), light diesel oil (five per cent), naphtha (four per cent) and petrol (three per cent) and the index was 241.3 points in the year-ago period.

The index of heavy-weighted manufactured products' group rose marginally by 0.1 per cent to 157.6 points due to price hike in food products, textiles, rubber and plastic products, non-metallic mineral products, basic metals and machinery. The index was at 149.2 points in the year-ago period.