Wholesale inflation up at 2.59 pc in December on higher food prices

The annual rate of inflation based on monthly wholesale price index (WPI) stood at 2.59 per cent in December as against 0.58 per cent in November due to increase in prices of food articles, data released by the government on Tuesday showed.

Wholesale prices based inflation was recorded at 3.46 per cent in December 2018, according to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

"The official WPI for all commodities (base 2011-12=100) for the month of December 2019 rose by 0.4 per cent to 122.8 (provisional) from 122.3 (provisional) for the previous month," it said in a statement.

"Build-up inflation rate in the financial year so far was 2.42 per cent compared to a build-up rate of 2.92 per cent in the corresponding period of previous year."

The food inflation rate rose to 13.24 in December as against 11 per cent in November. Within this category, onions saw an inflation rate of 455.8 per cent compared to 172.3 per cent in November.

The rate of vegetables climbed from 45.32 per cent in November to 69.69 per cent in December.

For manufactured products, which have a combined weight of 65 per cent in the WPI index, the inflation rate was at minus 0.25 per cent. The inflation of manufactured food products rose to 6.89 per cent in December from 5.05 per cent in November.

A day earlier, data showed that consumer price index (CPI) based retail inflation jumped to a five-year high of 7.35 per cent in December due to costlier food products like vegetables, pulses and protein-rich items.

That breached the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) upper tolerance limit of 6 per cent, quashing hopes for another cut in key interest rates during the February meeting.

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