Retail inflation for industrial workers eased marginally to 10.75 per cent in August as compared to 10.85 per cent in the previous month, mainly on account of lower prices of fruits, vegetables and edible oil.
However, retail inflation measured in terms of all India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) during August was higher than 10.31 recorded in the same month last year.
“The year-on-year inflation measured by monthly CPI-IW stood at 10.75 per cent for August, 2013 as compared to 10.85 per cent for the previous month and 10.31 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year,” a Labour Ministry statement said.
“Food inflation stood at 13.91 per cent against 14.10 per cent of the previous month and 12.20 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year,” it stated.
The largest upward pressure to the change in current index came from food group, contributing 1.58 percentage points to the total change.
At the item level, rice, wheat, wheat flour, goat meat, dairy milk, milk (cow & buffalo), onions, chillies, tea (readymade), firewood, doctors’ fee, private tuition fee, secondary school books, petrol, tailoring charges are responsible for the rise in index.
However, this was compensated to some extent by groundnut oil, fish, fresh vegetables and fruit items, putting downward pressure on the index.
According to a press release, all-India CPI-IW for August rose by 2 points, and pegged at 237. On a one-month percentage change, it increased by 0.85 per cent between July and August compared with 0.94 per cent between the same two months a year ago.
At centre level, Chindwara recorded the highest increase of eight points each followed by Jalpaiguri and Siliguri (seven), Durgapur (10) and Ranchi, Hatia, Nagpur, Kolkata, Asansol and Tiruchirapally (six each).
Among others, a five-point rise was registered in eight centres, four points in six centres, three points in 12 centres, two points in 13 centres and one point in 19 centres.
On the contrary, Goa reported a decline of five points, followed by Ernakulam, Quilon and Surat (two each) and three other centres by one point each. The other six centres’ indices remained stationary.
The indices of 39 centres are above All-India Index and other 38 centres’ indices are below national average. The index of Tiruchirapally centre remained at par with all-India index.
