Statement of Finance Ministry on Inflation
Annual (year-on-year) rate of inflation declined by 17 basis points to 0.3 per cent for the week ended March 14, 2009 from 0.4 per cent in the week ended March 7, 2009. Inflation was 8.0 per cent in the corresponding week of 2007-08.
Year-on-year Inflation by Commodity groups
Commodity group-wise, the fall in overall inflation in the current week is as below:
i. In ‘primary articles’, inflation decreased to 3.9 per cent in the week under reference, against 4.4 per cent in the earlier week. In ‘food articles’, inflation fell to 7.1 per cent from 7.4 per cent in the previous week. In ‘non-food articles’, inflation decelerated to (-) 2.8 per cent compared to (-) 1.7 per cent last week. In ‘minerals’, the rate of decline continued steady at (-) 1.2 per cent since the week ended February 14, 2009.
ii. In ‘fuel and power’, inflation was (-) 6.1 per cent versus (-) 6.0 per cent in the earlier week.
iii. In ‘manufactured products’, inflation rate decreased to 1.2 per cent in the current week, from 1.3 per cent last week. Inflation in most sub-groups declined or remained steady relative to rates recorded in the previous week.
Inflation in the combined food index (wt = 25.43 per cent) for the week ended March 7, 2009 decreased to 6.2 per cent compared to 6.6 per cent last week, due to decrease in inflation in primary food articles.
Inflation as per CPI indices for Agricultural Labour & Rural Labour (AL/RL)
Inflation in CPI- AL and CPI – RL was 10.79 per cent in both indices in February 2009, representing a fall from 11.62 per cent in the former and from 11.35 per cent in the latter from January 2009. On the other hand, monthly inflation in WPI in February 2009 was 3.6 per cent, compared to 5.2 per cent in the previous month.
