Wholesale price inflation eases to 8.23 percent

NEW DELHI - India’s annual inflation based on wholesale prices eased marginally to 8.23 percent in January as against 8.43 percent in the previous month, according to official data released Monday.

Prices of manufactured products, which have nearly 65 percent weight in the wholesale price index, rose 3.75 percent during January.

The headline inflation continue to remain high on sharp increase in the prices of food items. Food articles, which have 14.33 percent weight in the index, became costlier by 15.65 percent year-on-year, data released by the ministry of commerce and industry showed.

Wholesale price inflation for November has been revised upward to 8.08 percent from 7.48 percent reported earlier.

Prices of food items moderated during the last week of January. Annual food inflation dropped by nearly four percentage points to 13.07 percent for the week ended Jan 29 from 17.05 percent in the previous week, the data said.

However, inflation continues to remain much above the comfort level of 4-5 percent despite a series of anti-inflationary measures taken by fiscal and monetary policy makers.

The RBI in its third quarter monetary policy review recently 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.

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

The average inflation so far this financial year is 7.44 percent. Inflation based on wholesale prices was 9.42 percent in January last year.