Inflation up at 4.71%

Inflation shot up marginally to 4.71 per cent for week ended October 15 from 4.62 per cent in the previous week mainly due to increase in the prices of essential food, non-food, minerals and manufacturing items.

Spiralling prices of onion along with moderate rise in prices of other vegetables, fruits and edible oils due to festival demand burnt a hole in the pocket of consumers.

Minerals, especially iron ore and zinc became costlier during the week while manufactured products like tractors, pumps, textiles, non-metallic minerals and Indian-made foreign spirit witnessed a rise in prices.

All these factors contributed to the rise in inflation to 4.71 per cent during the October second week although it was still lower than 7.21 per cent a year ago.

The wholesale price index inched up by 0.3 per cent to 197.7 points for the week from 197.2 as primary articles became costlier by 1 per cent and manufactured products by 0.1 per cent, although fuel prices remained static.

The Reserve Bank warned that the full impact of domestic fuel price rise was yet to be felt, and so it might be difficult to keep the average inflation at 5-5.5 per cent for this fiscal.

The RBI also raised repo and reverse repo rates by 0.25 per cent each to contain inflation.

Pointing to high global oil prices, Finance Minister P Chidambaram endorsed RBI's concerns and said, "A strong vigil is being maintained by both the government and the RBI to contain the upside risk to price stability."

During the week under review, global oil prices hovered at $62 a barrel which was still high by any standards.

The government revised upwards inflation figure to 3.71 per cent for the week ended August 20, from the provisional 3.08 per cent, while the WPI stood corrected at 195.5 points as against the earlier estimate of 194.3 points.