Consumer price index up 2 points in November

Retail inflation for industrial workers inched up marginally to 11.47 per cent in November compared to 11.06 per cent in October and 9.55 per cent in the same month last year due to higher prices of food items.

“The year—on—year inflation measured by monthly Consumer Price Index—Industrial Workers (CPI—IW) stood at 11.47 per cent for November, 2013, as compared to 11.06 per cent for the previous month and 9.55 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year,” a Labour Ministry statement said.

The all India CPI—IW for November rose by 2 points and pegged at 243. On one month percentage change, it increased by 0.83 per cent between October and November compared with 0.46 per cent between the same two months a year ago.

”...the food inflation stood at 16.17 per cent against 15.02 per cent of the previous month and 10.85 per cent in during the corresponding month of the previous year,” it said.

According to the press release, the largest upward pressure to the change in the current index came from food group contributing 2.23 percentage points to the total change.

At item level, rice, wheat, wheat atta, milk, pure ghee, garlic, potato, tomato and other vegetable items. Tea readymade, etc. are responsible for the rise in the index.

However, this (rise in index) was compensated to some extend by groundnut oil, fresh fish, poultry, onion, ginger, electric charges, medicine (allopathic), petrol, putting downward pressure on the index.

At centre level, Bokaro recorded the highest increase of 11 points followed by Giridih, Kodarma, and Angul—Talcher (9 points each), Munger—Jamalpur (8 points) and Rourkela, Sholapur and Raniganj (7 points each).

Among others, 6 points rise was registered in five centres, five points in five centres, four points in eight centres, three points in 15 centres, 2 points in 14 centres and one point in 12 centres.

On the contrary, Surat centre reported a decline of 6 points followed by Amritsar, Bhavnagar and Vadodara (4 points each), Coonoor and Nagpur (2 points each) and Ahmedabad centre one point. Rest of the 4 centres’ indices remained stationary.

The indeces of 40 centres are above the all India Index and other 38 centres’ indices are below national average.