Retail inflation inches to 9.6% in Oct

The largest upward pressure on inflation came from items such as rice, wheat, wheat atta, milk, tea and onion

Retail inflation for industrial workers climbed to 9.6% in October on account higher prices of wheat and rice, from 9.39% in the same month last year.

The retail inflation, measured by the Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers, stood at 9.14% in September, as per the official data released here today.

The largest upward contribution to the change in the index came from food items which increased by 0.43%, contributing 0.45 percentage points to the total change.

The largest upward pressure on inflation came from items such as rice, wheat, wheat atta, milk, tea (readymade) and onion.

The other items like cooking gas, electricity charges, fire wood, medicine (Allopathic), doctors' fee, bus fare, cinema charges, also put upward pressure in total change.

The largest downward contribution to the change in current index came from oils and fats with a decline of 1.08%, contributing (-) 0.10 percentage points to the total change.

The main downward pressure came from groundnut oil, coconut oil, vanaspati ghee and palm oil.

Similarly, the food inflation stood at 9.91% in October against 11% of the previous month and 8.72% during the corresponding month of 2011.

Among the centres, Monger Jamalpur and Siliguri recorded the largest increase of 6 points each followed by Labac Silchar, Guntur, Salem, Jharia, Coimbatore, Sholapur, Jalpaiguri, Kodarma, Mariani Jorhat, Bengluru and Tripura at 4 points each.

Hubli Dharwar centres reported a decline of 4 points followed by Goa with 3 points, Chennai and Varanasi with 2 points each and other 6 centres registered a fall of one point.