The upswing over the last five weeks, largely due to the hike in petroleum prices and its indirect impact, has taken up the rate of price rise by almost a percentage point.
The rate of price rise based on final-over-final movements of the wholesale price index (WPI) moved up by 1.6 percentage points from the last week of June to the first week of July, belying the government's claim that petroleum price hike would only result in a 0.9 per cent point increase in inflation.
Provisional inflation had recorded a rise of only 0.2 percentage points during the week when the hike was announced.
The official wholesale price index (base 1981-82=100), which stood at 315.4 (provisional) in the latest week, gained 1.3 points largely due to costlier coffee, urad, vegetables, soyabean, rape and mustard seed, atta, maida, suji, petroleum crude, natural gas and fodder.
The four-week rise in inflation ending the last week of July was preceded by a four-week decline in the wholesale prices as it began with a 0.18 per cent point rise.
The interregnum between the rising streak that ended four weeks ago and the previous declining spell was marked by a two-week stationary phase as, after a gap of several months, it had stood at 4.22 per cent during the weeks ending June 22 and June 29.
It then moved up to 4.4 per cent during the following week. This is also the 76th week in succession that inflation has veered around single digit levels even at it crossed the six per cent level during the latest week.
However, going by the current trend, the
