Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: Notwithstanding the rise in food prices, the annual Inflation rate continued to slide down and stood at -1.74 percent for the week ended August 01. It was calculated at -1.58 the previous week and 12.91 percent during the corresponding week of the previous year.
Food prices continued on a higher path with barley, jowar and gram gaining two percent each and condiments & spices, arhar and fruits & vegetables costlier by one percent. However, the prices of tea declined by nine percent in the concerned week.
Higher prices of aviation turbine fuel, a major worry of struggling airlines, also contributed to the overall inflation data.
In the week, prices of edible oil, unrefined oil and khandsari and sugar moved up. However, the prices of rice bran oil and cotton seed oil declined.
Notably, beer and alcohol prices increased by as much as 13 percent.
The decline in Wholesale Prices Index was due to lower prices of Metals Alloys & Metal Products which declined by 0.1 percent riding on pig iron and foundry pig iron, iron steel.
India's annual rate of inflation turned negative for the week ended June 6 for the first time since the new Wholesale Price Index (WPI) series started in 1995.
The inflation rate had last turned negative in 1977. Negative inflation implies that the average wholesale price level was lower during a given week, than it was in the corresponding week a year ago.
Inflation, it may be mentioned, peaked in August 2008 to about 13 percent mainly on account of rising prices of crude oil and other commodities in the international market.
In a bid to provide better and more relevant picture of the inflation, the government is now planning to bring the base year to 2004-05 to cover more commodities in the index.
First Published: Thursday, August 13, 2009, 12:34