Costlier food items push inflation higher at 5.7% in March

Inflation in the food items, based on WPI, shot up by 9.9% in March

Snapping the declining trend, the inflation rose to a three month high of 5.7% in March mainly due to spurt in prices of food items like potato, onion and fruits.

The inflation in the food items, based on the wholesale price index (WPI), shot up by 9.9% in March as against 8.12% in the previous month.

The overall WPI inflation, which was on decline since December, had dropped to a nine-month low of 4.68% in February.

As per the data released by the government today, the January inflation number has been revised upward to 5.17% as against earlier estimate of 5.05%.

In March, price rise in potato was 27.83% as against 8.36% in the previous month. Inflation in onion was 1.92 in the last month of 2013-14 fiscal compared to contraction in price of the kitchen staple in the previous month.

Overall the inflation in vegetable segment was 8.57% as compared to about 4% in February. Fruits were costlier by 16.15% in March compared to 9.92%.

The government further said the build up of inflation rate in the 2013-14 financial year was 5.70 compared to a build up rate of 5.65% in the earlier fiscal.

The data further revealed that prices of sugar, pulses, cereals, cement and minerals eased in March compared to the previous month.

Inflation in the fuel and power category (LPG, petrol and diesel) rose to 11.22% versus 8.75% in February.

Later in the day, government is also scheduled to release data for retail inflation calculated on Consumer Price Index (CPI).

In the monetary policy review earlier this month, the Reserve Bank had retained the key interest rate expecting rise in inflationary expectations.