Breaking a nine-week upward rise, inflation rate eased a bit for the week ended April 29, by moving down to 5.94 per cent from 6.10 per cent a week ago.
The annual rate of inflation, calculated on the basis of wholesale price index (base: 1993-94 = 100), during the week fell 0.16 percentage points to 5.94 per cent (provisional) compared to 6.10 per cent a week ago and 3.55 per cent a year ago.
This is the first time the inflation rate has fallen after the new WPI series with 1993-94 as base year was introduced on April 1, 2000. The inflation rate has been witnessing a steady rise ever since it touched three per cent on February 5, mainly on account of increase in administered prices of petroleum products and electricity.
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During the week under reference, the index for `all commodities' moved up by 0.1 per cent to 151.5 from 151.4 in the previous week. The final rate of inflation on the new series stood sharply higher at 5.01 per cent for the week ended March 4, compared to 2.96 per cent on the provisional index.
The final index for all commodities was also sharply up at 148.8 as against provisional estimate of 145.9 The final index has been showing a substantially higher figure than provisional index for the last couple of weeks.
The steady rise in rate of increase in prices was reflected in consumer price index for industrial workers (CPI-IW) also, with annual inflation based on this index rising to 4.83 per cent in March from 3.61 per cent in February.
Amongst the three major groups in WPI, during the week index for `manufactured products' declined 0.1 per cent, while indices for `primary articles' and `fuel, power, light and lubricants' rose 0.4 per cent and 0.1 per cent respectively.
Among the commodities which witnessed substantial fluctuations during the week were tea (up 10 per cent), beef and buffalo meat, rape and mustard oil and coconut oil (down 5 per cent each), raw jute (up 20 per cent), niger seed (up 18 per cent), mesta and fodder (up 6 per cent each), aviation turbine fuel up 19 per cent) and raw cotton and sunflower oil (down 4 per cent each).
The index for primary articles rose 0.4 per cent to 162.1 from 161.5 in the previous week, on account of rise in indices of both food articles and non-food articles.