Food inflation declines further to 10.15 percent

NEW DELHI - India’s annual food inflation eased further to 10.15 percent for the week ended Nov 13, having fallen sharply by two percentage points to 10.30 percent the week earlier, showing a downward trend for the sixth consecutive week.

The annual inflation rate for the primary articles group rose marginally to 13.38 percent during the week under review compared to 13.30 percent in the week ended Nov 6, according to data released by the commerce and industry ministry Thursday.

Food inflation as well as the inflation based on wholesale prices have moderated in the past few weeks due to aggressive monetary tightening policy adopted by the country’s central bank and robust supply of food grain.

The overall inflation based on wholesale prices fell to 8.58 percent in October from 8.62 in the month before.

Fuels and power inflation was unchanged at 10.57 percent.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) earlier this month hiked both its short-term borrowing and lending rates by 25 basis points, tweaking its policy rates for the sixth time since the start of this calendar year to curb inflationary expectations.

The continued fall in food inflation will now shift the focus of the central bank and the government on declining industrial output, which fell to 4.4 percent in September.

The following are the rise and fall in prices of some of the main commodities that form the sub-index for food articles over the past 52 weeks:

Cereals: 1.5 percent

Rice: 2.09 percent

Wheat: (-) 0.74 percent

Pulses: (-) 7.58 percent

Vegetables: (-) 3.76 percent

Fruits: 21.85 percent

Milk: 16.9 percent

Potatoes: (-) 48.7 percent

Onions: 17.03 percent