India's annual rate of inflation for all commodities, based on the monthly Wholesale Price Index, or WPI, for April 2010 dropped to 9.59% from the 9.90% of the preceding month, due to the lower prices of potatoes, onions, vegetables and some manufactured products. The rate of inflation was 1.31% during the corresponding month last year, say data released on Thursday by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
The build-up inflation during the current fiscal so far dropped to 1.16% from the 1.45% in the corresponding period last year, the data showed.
Going by provisional figures, the WPI for all-commodities for April rose by 1.16% to 253.7 from the 250.8 of the previous month.
The final annual rate of inflation for February rose to 10.06% from the earlier provisional figure of 9.89%.
Primary Articles
The index for the Primary Articles group rose by 2.30% from the previous month of March.
The groups and items for which the index showed variations during the month were:
The index for the 'Food Articles' group increased by 2.81% from the previous month's, due to the higher prices of fish-marine, moong, urad, milk, condiments and spices, arhar, maize, ragi, barley, pork, gram, fish-inland and jowar; however, those of wheat, masur, tea, eggs and bajra declined.
The index under the 'Non-Food Articles' category grew by 0.67% from March, due to the higher prices of raw rubber, logs and timber, castorseed, raw skins, groundnut seed, raw silk, tanning materials, raw jute, as also mesta, while those of fodder, raw hides, nigerseed, copra, tobacco, linseed and rape-seed and mustard seed dropped.
The index for the 'Minerals' group rose by 3.06%, due to the higher prices of chromite, fire clay, iron ore, barytes and feldspar (1%), whereas those of magnesite, steatite and asbestos declined.
Fuel, Power
The index for fuel, power, light and lubricants rose by 0.61% from the previous month, due to the higher prices of naphtha, aviation turbine fuel, light diesel oil, liquefied petroleum gas, petrol and high speed diesel oil. However, the price of bitumen declined.
Manufactured Products
Prices of certain items, including phenol, blooms, billets and slabs, skelps, synthetic rubber, cement, salt, aerated water, woollen yarn, kraft paper, plastic containers and enamelled copper wires pushed up the index for 'Manufactured Products' to 0.79%. However, the prices of khandsari, sugar, rectified spirit, hessian and sacking bags, cycle tyres, complex fertilizer n_content, bright bars and ACSR conductors dropped.
Minister concerned
Inaugurating the national conference of the Confederation of Indian Industry in New Delhi on Wednesday, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said: "I am concerned about the prevailing high inflation in the economy. Inflation erodes real income. It hurts the marginalized, the poor segment of our society the most. I am hopeful that we will 'beat the high inflation' in the coming few months."
He said a good monsoon, coupled with steps initiated by the government on the supply side of foodgrains, would bring down consumer prices in the next few months.
Considering the industrial growth, particularly in the last six months, he expected the GDP growth to be around 8.5% for fiscal 2010, despite an unfavourable monsoon.
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