Inflation rate breached the 5.0 per cent mark during the week ended November 1, after a short span of 14 days, as food articles, fuel, and manufactured products became costly.

Rise in prices of essential items like wheat, jowar, maize, skimmed milk powder, edible oil, textile and paper pushed up the overall price level to 5.01 per cent during the week from 4.96 per cent in the previous week and 3.33 per cent a year ago.

Wholesale price index based on all commodities, rose by 0.2 per cent to 176.1 points from 175.8 in the previous week and 167.7 a year ago due to the rise in primary articles by 0.4 per cent, fuel by 0.1 per cent and manufactured products by 0.1 per cent.

The final WPI stood at 175.4 in the week ended September 6, as against the provisional figure of 174.9, while the final inflation rate was at 4.59 per cent as against the provisional figure of 4.29 per cent.

Primary articles group index rose to 183.6 from 182.8 in previous week due to rise in food article prices by 0.3 per cent even as non-food articles were costlier by 0.8 per cent.

Food articles group index rose to 185.9 from 185.7 due to rise in prices of ragi, eggs (3.0 per cent each), poultry chicken (2.0 per cent), wheat, fish marine, bajra and barley
(1.0 per cent each).

However, prices of jowar fell by 2.0 per cent while moong and maize were cheaper by 1.0 per cent each.