Retail inflation for industrial worker surges to 12.06% in Feb

The retail inflation for industrial workers measured in terms of CPI-IW was 11.62% in January

Retail inflation for industrial workers rose to 12.06% in February mainly due to increase in the price of food items, electricity charges, rail fare and petrol.

The retail inflation for industrial workers measured in terms of Consumer Price Index-Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) was 11.62% in January this year and 7.57% in February, 2012.

"The year-on-year inflation measured by monthly CPI-IW stood at 12.06% for February, 2013 as compared to 11.62% for the previous month and 7.57% during the corresponding month of the previous year", a Labour Ministry statement said here.

The food inflation stood at 14.98% in February against 14.08% of the previous month (January 2013) and 5.08% during the corresponding month of the previous year, it said.

According to the statement, all-India CPI-IW for February, 2013 rose by 2 points and pegged at 223  and on 1-month percentage change, it increased by 0.90% between January and February compared with 0.51% between the same two months a year ago.

The largest upward contribution to the change in current index came from food group which increased by 1.28%, contributing 1.40 percentage points to the total change.

This spurt in the prices of food items was followed by miscellaneous and fuel & light groups with 0.62 and 0.80% increase respectively contributing 0.27 and 0.11 percentage points to the change.

At item level, the largest upward pressure came from rice, wheat & wheat Atta, fish, goat meat, poultry (chicken), milk, onion, tea (readymade), electricity charges, rail fare and petrol.

However, the rise in the price of these food items was compensated to some extent by by root vegetables and sugar, putting downward pressure on the index.

At centre level, Belgaum and Munger-Jamalpur centres recorded the largest increase of 7 points each followed by Vijaywada, Tiruchirapally and Jharia (6 points each).

On the other hand, 4 points decline was reported in Coimbatore, followed by Tirpura and Guwahati (3 points each) and 1 point in 7 centres. As many as 14 centres indices remained stationary.

The indices of 41 centres are above All-India Index and other 36 centres indices are below national average. The index of Haldia centre was at par with all-India index.