The price rise in individual key food commodities over the last one year is significantly higher than what is conveyed by the wholesale price index. While the latest government data show inflation at 6.68 per cent for the week ended March 15, the price change in most food items is in double digits.
The Union petroleum ministry has proposed a 44 per cent increase in prices of natural gas sold under the administered price mechanism by state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and Oil India Ltd.
The increase by more than three per cent is largely due to jump in the rate of inflation in the case of WPI for fuel, power, light and lubricants
Industry experts insist that rising steel prices are triggered by rising input cost like scrap, iron ore and coking coal. The current international pricing scenario demands a prices increase domestically. The rising raw material costs and other available inputs as well as limited capex resources have driven the steel prices. The government has been taking steps to control prices by increasing the export duties on some commodities and even banning exports on some.
Inflation breached the 5.0 per cent figure with price level rising for the second consecutive week by 0.30 per cent to 5.3 per cent in the week ended March five despite cheaper fruits and vegetables.
The empowered group of ministers on fuel pricing is to meet this week to take a view on the price of diesel.
The inflation rate has been falling at a steady pace, after peaking at 12.83 per cent for the week ended August 16, 2008, mainly due to declining commodity prices. However, on a week-on-week basis, the WPI rose marginally by 0.04 per cent, due to increase in prices of certain articles, including food products like fruit and vegetables, condiments and spices as well as some processed food items.
Inflation based on the wholesale price index moved up to 4.54 per cent for the week ended November 26 from 4.32 per cent in the previous week, according to data released by the government on Friday.
The wholesale price-based inflation bucked the 4-month rising trend in December 2021, and eased to 13.56 per cent, mainly on account of softening in fuel, power and manufacturing items even though food prices hardened. WPI inflation has remained in double digits for the ninth consecutive month beginning April. Inflation in November was 14.23 per cent, while in December 2020 it was 1.95 per cent.
Inflation rose to 4.86 per cent in June, driven mainly by rising prices of food articles, especially vegetables including onion.
"This year (2009-10), our WPI is low and I don't see any problem on the horizon which could destabilise us except oil prices which remain a question," said Rajya Sabha MP and former Reserve Bank Governor Bimal Jalan. On the high fiscal deficit, Jalan said he did not think stimulus packages posed a problem. On taxation, he said it would not be good for the country not to have a reasonable rate of tax on profit and dividend.
In a major decision to bring petroleum products in line with market rates, the government on Friday freed petrol from all pricing controls and hiked diesel prices by Rs 2 a litre.
After remaining unchanged for a week, inflation rose by 0.28 per cent to 7.38 per cent for the week ended October 23, mainly due to costlier vegetables, fuels and certain manufactured products.
"The increase in minimum support price of many crops may keep the food inflation from falling in the current year," said the finance ministry in the mid-year review. MSP, which is determined by the government to protect the farmers' earnings, has increased by 15-40 per cent in the current fiscal for three major categories -- wheat, paddy and coarse grains. The latest hike in MSP announced during this election year is the largest in the last four years.
Inflation shot up to 7.51 per cent, the highest in the last two years, due to soaring prices of vegetables and manufactured products.\n\n\n\n
Inflation based on the wholesale-price-index was unchanged at 3.5 per cent for the week ended December 29, 2007.
The government has been stringent with pricing changes. Prices of 651 essential medicines came down from April 1, 2023 by 6.73 per cent with the government capping ceiling prices of these drugs.
In line with the government's expectations, inflation, which rose for the previous two weeks, fell below 8 per cent for the week ended September 4 mainly due to fall in the prices of vegetables and some edible oils.
Benchmark stock indices Sensex and Nifty declined on Monday, extending the losing run to the fourth day amid selling in IT shares and foreign fund outflows. The 30-share BSE Sensex dropped by 247.01 points or 0.30 per cent to settle at 82,253.46. During the day, it fell 490.09 points or 0.59 per cent to 82,010.38 but recovered some of the losses towards the close.
For manufactured products, the wholesale inflation was at (-)0.84 per cent in October 2019.
The wholesale price index-based inflation remained negative for the 11th consecutive week since June 6 mainly on high base. It was 12.82 per cent for the corresponding week last year. Prices of inland fish shot up by 25 per cent over the previous week, eggs became dearer by 10 per cent, masur dal was costly by 8 per cent, milk price went up by 5 per cent, and fruits and vegetables became expensive by 3 per cent.
India's headline retail inflation is expected to moderate further in the months to come, as low wholesale inflation will transmit to consumer prices, the Ministry of Finance said in its latest monthly economic review (MER) on Monday. "Inflationary pressures eased in February, with slight moderation in Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation and Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation softening to a 25-month low. "With WPI inflation easing, its transmission to CPI inflation is soon expected," the MER for February said.
After falling substantially in the previous week, inflation rose marginally by 0.06 per cent to 7.87 per cent for the week ended September 11 mainly due to costlier manufactured products including some edible oils.
Higher prices for essential commodities following the truckers' strike pushed up inflation by 0.16 per cent to a four-year high of 8.33 per cent for the week ended August 28.
Retail inflation dropped to 6.77 per cent in October from 7.41 per cent in the preceding month, mainly due to easing prices in the food basket, though it remained above Reserve Bank's comfort level for the 10th month in a row, according to the government data released on Monday. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based retail inflation has remained above the 6 per cent target since January this year.
Inflation at 6 per cent was a matter of concern in the evolving macro-economic outlook and the Reserve Bank of India fears that consumer prices could be even higher at 7 to 8 per cent.
Inflation shot up by 0.1 per cent to over 41-month high of 7.61 per cent week ended July 31, mainly due to surge in prices of fruit and vegetables, edible oil and other manufactured products.
Inflation moved up to 7.23 per cent in April on account of spurt in prices of vegetables, meat, milk and pulses, although onion and fruits showed a declining trend.
Inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, was 7.55 per cent in May. In June last year, it was 9.51 per cent.
Retail inflation hit an eight-month high of 6.07 per cent in February, remaining above the RBI's comfort level for the second month in a row, while wholesale price-based inflation soared to 13.11 per cent on account of hardening of crude oil and non-food item prices, government data showed on Monday. The previous high for retail inflation was 6.26 per cent in June 2021. The consumer price index (CPI) based retail inflation, which is taken into account by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) while deciding its monetary policy, rose mainly because of costlier food items, as per the data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
Retail inflation rose marginally to 9.84 per cent in September, mainly due to a hike in food prices, particularly of vegetables.
Wholesale price inflation stood at 4.78 per cent in November. The consumer price index for agricultural labourer and rural labourers were 13.73 per cent and 13.51 per cent in October.
Costlier fuel products and manufactured items including edible oils pushed up inflation to 4.95 per cent during the week ended February 26.
Overall food inflation rose to 10.74 per cent in May, from 10.49 per cent in the previous month. Food articles have 14.3 per cent share in the WPI basket.
Quarterly earnings of corporates, trading activity of foreign investors and inflation data are the key factors that are expected to drive the momentum in the equity markets this week, analysts said.
This could be the reason why Prime Minister Narendra Modi mentioned tomato, onion, and potato as his government's 'TOP' priority, in an election rally on February 5 in poll-bound Karnataka.
Among Sensex firms, Eternal, Infosys, Asian Paints, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finserv and Titan were the major gainers. However, Tata Steel, Tech Mahindra, Adani Ports and Bharat Electronics were among the laggards.
Inflation shot up to a four-year high at 8.17 per cent for the week ended August 21 despite a number of steps, including duty cuts on petroleum products and steel, taken by the government to rein in prices.
Households continued to bear the brunt of increased cost of living with inflation rising by 0.35 per cent to 7.96 per cent for week ended August 7, mainly due to costlier vegetables, petrol, diesel and aviation turbine fuel.
