 "Customers buy vegetables from a stall at a market in Ahmedabad")
Pushed by food prices such as vegetables and fruits, the wholesale price index-based inflation rose to 1.62% in June, which was double the rate of 0.79% in the previous two months each. With retail price index-based inflation also inching up to a 22-month high of 5.77% from 5.76%, the Reserve Bank of India may be prompted to keep a status quo in the policy rate in its monetary review next month.
Food inflation was up at 8.18% in June from 7.88% in May, official data released on Thursday showed. The rise in food inflation could be gauged from the fact that it was 4.70% in April, 4.09% in March and 3.91% in February. It, however, stood at 6.46% in January.
Vegetables that are becoming dearer these days saw inflation rising to 16.91% in June from 12.94% in May. Again, the rate of price rise in vegetables stood at just 2.90% in April and before that it saw decline in prices in the first three months of this calendar year.
Within vegetables, potatoes saw the price index rising to 64.48% in June from 60.01% in the previous month.
Fruit inflation also recorded an uptrend, rising to 5.97% from 3.8%. Its prices fell in each of the first four months of the current calendar year.
The price index in wheat rose to 6.83% from 3.85%.
Petrol continued to see a decline in prices, though diesel saw slight uptick with the rate of price rise moving up to 1.13% from decline in prices by 5.01% in May.
Processed food prices also pushed up manufacturing inflation to 1.17% in June from 0.91% in the previous month. Inflation in sugar rose to 26.09% from 22.30%.
