Food inflation falls to nine-week low

NEW DELHI - India’s annual food inflation dropped to 11.05 percent for the week ended Feb 5 — a nine-week low — as prices of essential items like pulses, and potatoes dropped, according to official data released Thursday.

The food inflation had dropped nearly four percentage points to 13.07 percent in the previous week.

The data should give some respite to the government which has been trying out various measures from monetary policy tightening to a slew of initiatives like selling essential food items by state-run agencies and a crackdown on hoarders.

The annual inflation based on wholesale prices was 8.23 percent in January.

In an interaction with editors of TV news channels Wednesday, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had assured the country that food inflation would come down and overall inflation be no more than 7 percent by March-end.

The annual inflation for primary articles declined to 14.59 percent during the week ended Feb 5, compared to 16.24 percent in the previous week.

The fuel index, however, rose to 11.92 percent as against 11.61 percent in the week before.

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

Onions: 31.33 percent

Vegetables: 23.99 percent

Fruits: 12.21 percent

Potatoes: (-)13.63 percent

Milk: 11.66 percent

Eggs, meat, fish: 15.14 percent

Cereals: 1.53 percent

Rice: 1.89 percent

Wheat: (-)2.54 percent

Pulses: (-)5.88 percent