Inflation drops to 5.42%

Inflation fell to 33-week low of 5.42% for the week ended January 15 mainly due to lower prices of essential items like vegetables, fruits, tea, edible oil and naphtha.

The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation fell marginally by 0.18 during the week from 5.6% in the previous week despite a slight rise in manufactured product prices.

Fiscal and monetary measures by the government and the Reserve Bank helped the general price level to slide to 5.42% from 6.55% a year ago.

However, finance ministry officials are keeping their fingers crossed over the future trend in inflation as global oil prices continue to be volatile.

Some of the key industrial items like cement, furnace oil, steel sheets, copper wires and electric motors, however, saw a rise in prices.

The WPI remained unchanged at the previous week's level of 188.6, but was much higher than 178.9 a year ago.

Government revised the index downward to 189.9 from the provisional figure of 190.1 during the week ended November 20, while inflation stood corrected at 7.23% against the provisional 7.34%.

The general price level declined slightly during the week due to a 0.2% fall in the prices of primary articles and a marginal fall in fuel prices, but manufactured products were costlier by 0.1%.