Inflation Moves Up To 7.7 Per Cent, Wpi Declines
The annual rate of inflation, after a brief spell of cessation in price rise, moved up again to touch 7.66 per cent for the week ended January 25.
The annual inflation (provisional-over-final) rose by 0.18 percentage points against 7.48 per cent in the previous week even as the wholesale prices index (WPI) for all commodities (base 1981-82=100) declined to 320.3 against 320.4 for the week before.
This is the 96th week in succession that inflation has maintained single digit levels. It had touched single digits in March 1995.
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The annual inflation during the corresponding week in 1996 was 4.9 per cent.
The 7.7 per cent inflation is mainly due to sharp increase in the prices of vegetables (41.5 per cent), grain mill products (41 percent), fruits (28 per cent), coal mining (22.3 per cent), cereals (21 per cent), oil cakes (14.7 per cent), pulses (14.3 per cent) and electricity (11.75 per cent) compared to last year.
Meanwhile, the annual rate of inflation based on the final index for the week ended November 30, 1996, stood at 6.7 per cent against 6.8 per cent for the week based on provisional index.
The annual rate of inflation, which was around 6 per cent at the beginning of 1996, steadily declined till June when it touched a record low of 4.2 per cent. However, it started moving up sharply after the petroleum price hike in July first week.
In the second half of 1996 (July-December) alone wholesale prices have gone up by 4.3 per cent against 0.9 per cent in 1995.
However, the rate of inflation based on the more reflective consumer price index for industrial workers for November stood at 8.7 per cent compared to 6.7 per cent inflation based on WPI for the same month.
Increasingly, the average inflation based on CPI for the first 11 months of 1996 at 8.8 per cent is way higher than the average inflation based on WPI at 5.5 per cent for the same period.
During the week the prices of coconut oil, eggs, groundnut seed, soyabean, gur, sugar and sweet meet confectionery, malted food, filament yarn synthetic, sulphuric acid and formaldehyde rose significantly, while prices of skimmed milk powder, ragi, masur, rape and mustard seed, cotton seed, lac, arhar and fruits and vegetables eased.