Retail inflation for industrial workers rises to 6.49% in Sept: Govt data

Retail inflation for industrial workers rose to 6.49 per cent in September from 5.85 per cent in August 2022 mainly due to higher prices of certain food items, according to the government data released on Monday.

"Year-on-year inflation for the month (of September 2022) stood at 6.49 per cent compared to 5.85 per cent for the previous month (August, 2022) and 4.40 per cent during the corresponding month (September 2021) a year before," a labour ministry statement said.

Similarly, it stated that the food inflation stood at 7.76 per cent against 6.46 per cent of the previous month and 2.26 per cent during the corresponding month a year ago.

The All-India CPI-IW (Consumer Price Index-Industrial Workers) for September, 2022 increased by 1.1 points and stood at 131.3 points. It was 130.2 points in August 2022.

On one-month percentage change, it increased by 0.84 per cent with respect to previous month compared to an increase of 0.24 per cent recorded between corresponding months a year ago, it stated.

The maximum upward pressure in current index came from food & beverages group contributing 0.68 percentage points to the total change. At item level, rice, wheat atta, buffalo milk, dairy milk, poultry/chicken, carrot, cauliflower, green coriander leaves, onion, potato, tomato, vada, idli, dosa etc are responsible for the rise in index.

However, it stated that this increase was largely checked by fish (fresh), palm oil, mustard oil, sunflower oil, soyabeen oil, apple, asafoetida, orange, gourd (lauki) etc putting downward pressure on the index.

At centre level, Bhavnagar recorded a maximum increase of 4.5 points. Among others, 6 centres recorded increase between 3 and 3.9 points, 10 centres between 2 and 2.9 points, 24 centres between 1 and 1.9 points and 30 centres between 0.1 and 0.9 points. On the contrary, Chindwara, Ahmedabad and Shilong recorded a maximum decrease of 0.6 points each.

Among others, 8 centres recorded decrease between 0.1 and 0.9 points. Rest of six centres' index remained stationary.

The Labour Bureau, an attached office of the Ministry of Labour & Employment, has been compiling Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers every month on the basis of retail prices collected from 317 markets spread over 88 industrially important centres in the country.

The index is compiled for 88 centres and All-India and is released on the last working day of the succeeding month.