Overall, vegetables were 47.06 per cent cheaper during the week under review, from the same period last year.
Food inflation remained in the negative zone for the third straight week, at (-)0.42 per cent for the week ended January 7, mainly due to fall in prices of onion and vegetables.
Inflation may touch the six per cent-mark by the end of this fiscal due to surging food prices and decline in agricultural output, research firm Dun & Bradstreet said.
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Food prices for consumers also eased to an annual 11.06 percent in August from 11.24 per cent in July.
According to official data released on Thursday, onions grew cheaper by 59.04 per cent year-on-year during the week under review, while potato prices were down by 33.76 per cent.
Inflation in food articles, which have a 14.3 per cent share in the WPI basket, however witnessed an increase as onion prices shot up during the month.
Food inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, stood at 11.81 per cent in the previous week ended October 29.
Food inflation was recorded at 9.23 per cent in September.
In tune with the Reserve Bank of India's expectation of moderate inflation this year, the general price level stood unchanged at the previous week's figure of 4.2 per cent for the week ended May 8.
With fuel being the main input cost for the transport sector, rise in cost of operations is a given. The sector is unsure on the extent of being able to pass this on through rentals or to absorb it with higher volumes.
Prices of most commodities, barring wheat, continued to remain firm on an annual basis, as per Wholesale Price Index data released by the government in New Delhi.
The panel has also decided to increase the weight of manufactured items and the fuel group in the new index. Accordingly, the new WPI series, with a revised base year of 2004-05, will see the weight of manufactured items go up to around 65 per cent from 63.75 per cent in the present series.
The rate of price rise stood at 8.87 per cent in August, 2010.
As per commerce and industry ministry data, food inflation fell to 4.91 per cent in March from 7.79 per cent in the previous month.
Inflation declined marginally to 7.45 per cent in October even though prices of food items like rice, wheat pulses and potato showed a rising trend.
The annual rate of inflation based on monthly wholesale price index (WPI) was 1.22 per cent in December as compared to 1.55 per cent in the previous month. It was 2.76 per cent in December 2019. The decline last month was mainly due to lower increase in food prices, data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed on Thursday. The food inflation for December dropped to 0.92 per cent as compared to 4.27 per cent in the previous month.
Inflation rose to 7.81 per cent in September, from 7.55 per cent in August.
Food inflation is back in double digits after a gap of a month-and-a-half and stood at 10.60 per cent for the week ending October 8 on the back of costlier vegetables, fruits, milk and protein-based items.
Inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, stood at 9.78 per cent in August.
Inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index, was 6.87 per cent in July.
Overall the inflation in vegetable segment was 8.57 per cent as compared to about 4 per cent in February.
Core inflation, a measure of demand-side pressure on prices also rose sharply in March.
The wholesale price index-based inflation, which neared double-digit level in February, has probably peaked and was likely to decline as the country expected a good winter crop and drop in oil prices, RBI Deputy Governor K C Chakrabarty told reporters on the sidelines of a function in Bangalore on Monday.
Food inflation stood at 20.18 per cent in the comparable period last year.
Richard Illey, chief economist, (Asia, ex-Japan) at BNP Paribas, talks to Business Standard on inflation and related issues ahead of the Reserve Bank's annual review of monetary policy.
The inflation bogey that stalked the government earlier in the week appears to have lost force, with the wholesale price index declining to 6.05 per cent for the week ended February 17, 2007, against 6.63 per cent for the previous week.
The Bharatiya Janata Party notes with dismay the fact that the consumer price inflation in India today is the highest among all the countries of Asia-Pacific.
The government's response to the price hike needs to be less panicky. The imposition of export duties, reduction in import duties, increasing the minimum export prices, restricting exports and raising the cash reserve ratio for banks have been among the measures that have resulted from this concern over inflation.
Inflation measured by the Wholesale Price Index had declined to 6.62 per cent in January. It was 7.18 per cent in December and 7.24 per cent in November.
The common man's main grouse is high inflation numbers. But there are other anomalies as well that need to be addressed.
Ahead of the monetary policy review on May 3, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath said inflation was a concern, mainly on account of the high prices of non-food manufacturing goods.
Inflation fell substantially by 0.62 per cent to 5.32 per cent for the week ended February 28 mainly due to the fall in prices of primary items, including fruits and vegetables, and non-food articles.
The move aimed at blunting Finance Ministry, RBI's opposition to monthly reporting.
Costlier fuels, including LPG, pushed up inflation to 5.38 per cent for the week ended December 6 -- the fourth week in a row that saw rising inflation -- even as prices of vegetables, rice and some edible oils declined.
The wholesale price index stood at 6.21 per cent during the corresponding week a year ago. Prices of maize, arhar and moong declined by one per cent each. However, prices of fuel remained unchanged at the previous week's level.
The inflation rate fell marginally to 4.88 per cent during the week ended November 8 despite a rise in prices of essential items like wheat, tea, maize, textiles, paper, metal and machines.
In an earlier analysis for the period till April 26, it had been found that of the 365 items in the WPI, the index for as many as 166 items had not been revised for more than four months. The latest analysis as of June 21 shows that the index for around 55 of these 166 items has been revised. In effect, only one-third of the items have seen an index revision. During this period, headline inflation has moved from 8.27 per cent to 11.63 per cent.
Interestingly, it is the long products that have witnessed the steepest price increase (between 50 per cent and 62 per cent), clearly reflecting the booming demand from construction activities. However, the flat products, by comparison, have seen a price increase of 17-24 per cent, almost half compared with the long products. Driven by demand, the share of the long products in the total steel production has been steadily increasing.
However, risks to the outlook stems from possible sub-normal monsoon and higher crude oil prices (on account of the crisis in Iraq)," the Economic Survey 2013-14 tabled in Parliament by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said.
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