H-P Slashes Pc Tags, Price-War To Intensify

Inflation rate continued to decline for the third consecutive week and stood at 2.44 per cent for the week ended December 04 following the consistent fall in prices of major food products.

The 0.2 percentage point drop in the annual rate of inflation was mainly on account of a sharp decline of 0.8 per cent and 1.2 per cent each in prices of food articles under the primary articles category and manufactured products category respectively.

The wholesale price index (WPI) for all commodities recorded a 0.3 per cent fall during the week to 365.8 (provisional) against 366.9 (provisional) a week ago.

The fall in prices of food articles following arrival of fresh crops resulted in the inflation rate dropping to 2.44 per cent (provisional) for the current week from 2.46 per cent (provisional) in the previous week and 7.40 per cent during the corresponding period last year.

The lower rate of inflation during most part of the current fiscal has been mainly on account of a comparison with a higher base last year when overall prices were up following an abnormal increase in vegetable prices.

While the inflation rate based on the final index for the week ended October 9 stood at 2.8 per cent as against 2.5 per cent based on the provisional index.

The primary articles' index recorded a decline of 0.6 per cent during the reference week, while the index for fuel, power, light & lubricants remained unchanged at the previous week's level.