Inflation rises to 4.75%

The annual inflation based on wholesale price index rose marginally to 4.75 per cent during the week-ended October 29, as against 4.49 during the previous week and 6.95 per cent in the corresponding period last year.

The wholesale price index (WPI) was up 0.3 per cent at 198.3 points from 197.7 points in the previous week. The WPI was at 189.3 points during the corresponding period last year.

The marginal increase was mainly on account of an increase in the price of food and non-food articles. The index for food articles' group rose 1.8 per cent to 201.5 points due to higher prices of pork and fruits & vegetables (8 per cent) and urad, gram and bajra (1 per cent each).

The index for non-food articles group index increased 0.3 per cent to 182.2 points ,due to higher prices of mesta (11 per cent), tobacco (2 per cent) and groundnut seed, raw jute, raw cotton and safflower (1 per cent each).

The index of fuel, power, light and lubricants, which has a weight of over 14 per cent, however, declined 0.7 per cent to 312.4 from 314.7 in the previous week on account of lower prices of electricity.

D K Joshi, senior economist with Crisil said inflation was expected to hover between 4.5 per cent and 5 per cent till December. "After December, we expect inflation to increase more sharply to around 6 per cent once the base effect is over," he said.

The government revised upwards the inflation for the week ended September 3 to 3.64 per cent from the provisional level of 3.16 per cent. The WPI stood corrected at 196.6 points as against the earlier estimate of 195.7 points.