Food inflation soars yet again

NEW DELHI - India’s annual food inflation shot up to 17.05 percent for the week ended Jan 22, as prices of onions, vegetables and other essential food items continued to reign high, according to official data released Thursday.

Food inflation for the previous week was 15.57 percent.

The high food prices will act as a dampener on the government’s efforts to control prices.

A string of measures was announced last month after the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met senior ministers to discuss how to control prices.

The annual inflation for primary articles rose further to 18.44 percent, compared to 17.21 percent in the previous week, according to the commerce and industry ministry data.

Non-food articles were at 25.09 percent for the week ended Jan 22, higher from the 22.48 percent a week earlier.

The annual inflation for fuels, however, slipped to 11.61 percent from 16.4 percent.

“Continuing supply constraints and leakages in the supply-distribution system persisted, resulting in the price rise. This is not unusual as the steps announced by the government as well as the impact of the monetary policy changes will take effect with a lag, said Shanto Ghosh, principal economist at Deloitte in India.

“I expect the rising trend to be reversed within the next few weeks,” he added.

The fresh data comes after the Reserve Bank of India raised key interest rates.

The central bank hiked its repurchase or repo rate to 6.5 percent from 6.25 percent and reverse repo rate to 5.5 percent from 5.25 percent in a bid to tame prices that have resulted in annual food inflation soaring to double digits.

It had also revised its current fiscal year-end projections for inflation, raising it to 7 percent from the earlier 5.5 percent.

The government will also be worried as the high inflation could derail its agenda, and opposition parties would seek to corner it when the budget session of parliament starts Feb 21.

Corruption and inflation have been the two major issues opposition parties have been using to attack Manmohan Singh’s government.

The wholesale price index rose 8.43 percent in December from a year earlier.

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

Onions: 130.41 percent

Vegetables: 77.05 percent

Fruits: 15.47 percent

Potatoes: 6.22 percent

Milk: 11.41 percent

Eggs, meat, fish: 15.05 percent

Cereals: 1.23 percent

Rice: 2.85 percent

Wheat: (-)4.34 percent

Pulses: (-)11.12 percent