India’s inflation rate as measured by wholesale price index (WPI) stood at 11.44 per cent for the week ended October 4 as compared to 11.8 per cent for the previous week, on account of decline in prices of manufactured goods.
However, inflation rate for primary articles - which includes food articles - went up on a weekly basis. The annual rate of inflation stood at 3.22 per cent a year ago.
This is the second consecutive week when the government released the inflation number during the trading hours in stock exchanges. Usually, the inflation numbers are released at six in the evening on Thursdays.
The index for manufactured products, which constitute nearly two-thirds of WPI index number, declined by half percentage point as prices of food articles like oilcakes, imported edible oil and rice bran oil fell. The index number for fuel component also declined by 1.1 per cent as crude oil prices have tumbled.
“The latest inflation numbers are consistent to what was expected,” said Subir Gokarn, economist with Standard & Poor’s Asia Pacific, a ratings and advisory firm. “We will see inflation returning to comfortable rates by March 2009,” he added.
Inflation rate at around 5 per cent is seen as comfortable by Reserve Bank of India, but WPI based inflation number has crossed the double-digit mark for many months now.
The annual rate of inflation for primary articles group increased to 12.68 per cent for the week ended October 4 this year, as against 11.17 per cent a week earlier. In particular, annual rate of inflation for food articles raced to 9.69 per cent in the reported week as against 7.61 per cent in the previous week.
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The final index number was also revised upward to 12.82 per cent for the week ended August 9, as against the provisional number of 12.63 per cent.