Inflation At 2.05%

The annual point-to-point inflation rate touched 2.05 per cent for the week ended June 15, up from 1.87 per cent in the previous week. The wholesale price index based inflation has crossed the 2 per cent mark for the first time this calendar year.

The rise in inflation was mainly on account of a surge in prices of fruits, vegetables, raw cotton, edible oils, maize, beer and alcohol. Inflation was 5.3 per cent in the corresponding week last year.

The inflation rate based on the final WPI for the week ending April 20 was 1.37 per cent as against the provisional figure of 1.44 per cent.

At a disaggregated level, the index for primary articles rose by 0.9 per cent while that for manufactured products rose by 0.2 per cent. The index for fuel, power, light and lubricants remained unchanged at the previous weeks level. Within the major group of primary articles, indices for both food and non-food articles rose by 0.9 per cent while the index for minerals was down by 2.5 per cent.

Items whose prices rose sharply include chicken, fruits and vegetables, raw cotton, copra (4 per cent), maize (3 per cent) and soyabean (2 per cent).

Within the sub-group of minerals, prices of magnesite fell by 61 per cent, of fire clay by 19 per cent and of silica sand by 1 per cent. Price of barytes, however, rose by 10 per cent during the week.

The index for manufactured products rose mainly due to costlier food products, beverages, textiles, chemicals and machinery. Items whose prices rose sharply include soyabean oil, electrical relay , beer and alcohol (8 per cent), rice bran oil (7 per cent), liquid chlorine (6 per cent), oil cakes (5 per cent), hydrogenated vanaspati and solvent extracted groundnut oil (4 per cent), coconut oil and sunflower oil (3 per cent each), polyester staple fibre and acids (2 per cent).

However, bran was cheaper by 4 per cent and sugar and gingelly oil by 1 per cent each. Cement prices also dipped by one per cent to push non-metallic mineral product sub-group index down by 0.4 per cent to 140.3.