Despite assurances from policy-makers, India’s annual rate of inflation rose to 8.31 percent for February from 8.23 percent for the month before due to higher prices of fuels and manufactured products, official data showed Monday.
The statistics on the official wholesale price index (WPI) released by the industry ministry further showed that the provisional annual rate of inflation for December, which was earier pegged at 8.43 percent for December, stood revised to 9.41 percent.
The data Monday has put further pressure on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to have a relook at its monetary policy as pressure will also mount from the government to rein in prices ahead of assembly elections in five states April-May.
The limited weekly data for the week ended Feb 26 had showed that the food inflation had declined to 9.52 percent from 10.39 percent the earlier week, even though prices of vegetables, milk, eggs, meat and poultry still remained high.
Both Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had assured the Lok Sabha recently that food prices will come down in the near term and that the overall inflation rate will be no more than 7 percent by March-end.
“By the end of this fiscal year, inflation will be controlled. I expect the situation to improve,” the prime minister had said.
Following is the 12-month inflation for some sub-indices within the overall wholesale price index:
-Primary articles 14.79 percent
-Food Articles 10-65 percent
-Vegetables 16.11 percent
-Cereals 1.89 percent
-Pulses (-)5.10 percent
-Non-food articles 29.80 percent
-Fuels 11.49 percent
-Cooking gas 14.99 percent
-Petrol 28.73 percent
-Diesel 12.45 percent
-Manufactured products 4.94 percent
-Sugar (-)15.58 percent
-Edible oils 11.44 percent
-Manmade Textiles 10.86 percent
-Cotton Textiles 19.16 percent
