WPI inflation at 6-month high of 3.59% in Oct; onion, veggies costlier

New Delhi: India`s annual wholesale price inflation picked up in October to a six-month high, driven by faster rises in prices of food and fuel products, government data showed on Tuesday.

According to data from the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, the wholesale price index (WPI), with the revised base year of 2011-12, went up in October to 3.59 percent from 2.60 percent in September.

Wholesale food prices in October rose 3.23 percent year-on-year, compared with a 1.99 percent rise a month earlier, the data showed.

Inflation in food articles more than doubled to 4.30 percent in October.

For vegetables, it soared to 36.61 percent last month as against 15.48 percent in September.

In case of onions, inflation skyrocketed to 127.04 percent, while for the eggs, meat and fish segment the rate of price rise was 5.76 percent.

Inflation in manufactured products saw a slight dip to 2.62 percent, as against 2.72 percent in September.

In the fuel and power segment, inflation rose to 10.52 percent, as against 9.01 percent in September.

Fuel inflation has remained high for the past three months as petrol and diesel prices continued to rule high tracking global crude oil rates. Power tariffs shot through the roof on lower domestic production.

Pulses continued to witness deflation at 31.05 percent. Likewise, in potato deflation was at 44.29 percent and wheat at 1.99 percent.

The final print of August WPI inflation remained unchanged at 3.24 percent.

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) released its data on retail inflation showing costlier food items, particularly vegetables, pushed up retail inflation in October to 7-month high of 3.58 percent.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation was 3.28 percent in September.

It was 4.2 percent in October last year. The previous high was 3.89 percent in March this year.