India: The wholesale price index-based inflation eased to 1.22 percent in December on easing food prices, revealed the data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Thursday.
The wholesale price-based inflation rose to a 9-month high of 1.55 percent in November as manufactured products turned costlier, while food prices eased. The WPI inflation was 1.48 percent in October 2020 and 0.58 percent in November last year. This is the highest level of Wholesale price index-based (WPI) inflation since February when it was 2.26 percent.
“The rate of inflation, based on monthly WPI, stood at (1.22 percent) (provisional) for December 2020 (over December 2019) as compared to (2.76%) during the corresponding month of the previous year,” says a government statement.
Inflation in food articles contracted 1.11% after rising 3.94% last month while that in fuel and power index contracted 8.72% against a fall of 9.87% in November. Manufactured products inflation rose to 4.24% against a 2.97% rise in the previous month.
Data released last week showed retail inflation falling to 4.59% in December from 6.93% in November, which brought the CPI back within the Monetary Policy Committee’s target range of 2-6% for the first time since March 2020.
A complete of 16 teams that witnessed a rise in costs are manufacture of furnishings; different transport tools; motor automobiles, trailers and semi-trailers; equipment and tools; electrical tools; pc, digital and optical merchandise; fabricated steel merchandise besides equipment and tools; primary metals; different non-metallic mineral merchandise; rubber and plastics merchandise; chemical substances and chemical merchandise; printing and copy of recorded media; paper and paper merchandise; textiles; tobacco merchandise; and meals merchandise.