Wholesale inflation rises to 5.13 pc in Sept on rising fuel, food prices

New Delhi: Inflation based on wholesale prices rose to a two-month high of 5.13 per cent in September, mainly due to hardening of food prices and rise in cost of petrol and diesel.

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation stood at 4.53 per cent in August and 3.14 per cent in September last year. According to the government data released Monday, food articles witnessed hardening of prices with deflation at 0.21 per cent September as against 4.04 per cent in August. Deflation in vegetables was 3.83 per cent in September, compared to 20.18 per cent in the previous month.

Inflation in 'fuel and power' basket in September was 16.65 per cent. Individually, in petrol and diesel it was 17.21 per cent and 22.18 per cent, respectively, and for LPG it was 33.51 per cent. Among food articles, potato inflation spiked to 80.13 per cent in September, while onion and fruits witnessed deflation of 25.23 per cent and 7.35 per cent, respectively. Deflation in pulses stood at 18.14 per cent.

The 5.13 per cent inflation is the highest in two months, and a higher inflation than this level was last seen in July at 5.27 per cent. Data released last week showed retail inflation rose to 3.77 per cent in September from 3.69 per cent in the previous month. The RBI mainly takes into account retail inflation data while formulating monetary policy.

In its fourth monetary policy review for the fiscal last week, the Reserve Bank maintained status quo on the benchmark interest rate but warned that volatile and rising oil prices, and tightening of global financial conditions pose substantial risks to the growth and inflation. For October-March, the RBI pegged CPI-based retail inflation to be between 3.9-4.5 per cent.