After rising for three consecutive weeks, inflation fell to 0.48 per cent for the week ended May 2, even as essential food items like pulses, cereals and vegetables ruled high.
For the ninth week in a row, inflation stood below the one per cent mark, prompting the RBI and banks to cut interest rates.
Yesterday, the country's largest lender, SBI, slashed deposit rates for the second time in a month across various maturities, this time by up to 0.50 percentage points effective from May 18.
Wholesale price inflation declined by 0.22 percentage points from 0.70 per cent in the previous week. Inflation stood at 8.73 per cent during the same week a year ago.
During the week, the prices of ragi were up by a whopping 17 per cent, tea by two per cent, pulses by 0.4 per cent and vegetables by 3 per cent.
Year-on-year, the prices of cereals went up more than 11 per cent, pulses 14.8 per cent, and fruit and vegetables 5.5 per cent. At the same time, the prices of milk have gone up nearly 6.5 per cent over last year, while spices were more expensive by about 8.5 per cent.
Among manufactured food products, processed fish turned dearer by more than 42 per cent over the last year and sugar, khandsari and gur went up about 26 per cent.