Food inflation softens

May 06, 2010 01:05 pm | Updated November 28, 2021 09:01 pm IST - New Delhi

The arrival of rabi (winter) crops has helped reduce prices of essential items as food inflation further eased.

The arrival of rabi (winter) crops has helped reduce prices of essential items as food inflation further eased.

With prices of essential commodities cooling a tad on arrival of rabi crops, food inflation softened further to 16.04 per cent for the week ended April 24 from 16.61 per cent in the previous week.

Even as the general expectation is that a normal monsoon, if as projected by the India Meteorological Department comes true, would help in easing food prices further, fuel inflation held steady at 12.69 per cent owing to higher prices following the hike in duties on petrol and diesel.

Significantly, despite persistent demands by the Opposition earlier this week for rolling back the hike in fuel prices, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee held firm and expressed his inability to do so owing to the fragile fiscal situation.

The gradual decline in food inflation for the second week in a row has raised hopes of some moderation in the overall inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for April from the March level of 9.9 per cent. The headline WPI inflation data for April is expected to be released next week.

According to Chief Economic Adviser Kaushik Basu, the headline inflation is likely to soften to 6-7 per cent in the coming months. “I expect the overall WPI to come down to 6-7 per cent in the next three months,” he said.

However, despite the declining trend in recent weeks, food inflation has remained above 15 per cent since November last year. Keeping this mind, the United Nations' organisation ESCAP has expressed concern over the food price spiral even as it projected a cool-down during the year.

During the week, inflation eased on account of lower prices of fish, wheat, fruits and vegetables which declined by one per cent each. However, the prices of tea went up by 13 per cent while gram, maize and eggs were also dearer by one per cent each.

0 / 0
Sign in to unlock member-only benefits!
  • Access 10 free stories every month
  • Save stories to read later
  • Access to comment on every story
  • Sign-up/manage your newsletter subscriptions with a single click
  • Get notified by email for early access to discounts & offers on our products
Sign in

Comments

Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.

We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.