WPI inflation accelerates to 0.16% in August

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its policy review last month kept interest rates unchanged and said it sees upside risk to inflation..

Country’s wholesale price inflation accelerated for the first time since March as the prices of food items and manufactured products soared, government data showed on Monday.

The wholesale price-based inflation rose 0.16 per cent in August with a contraction of 0.58% in July, data showed.

The wholesale price-based inflation rose 0.16 per cent in August as food items and manufactured products turned costlier.

The Wholesale price index based (WPI) inflation was in the negative territory for four straight months: April (-) 1.57 per cent; May (-) 3.37 per cent; June (-) 1.81 per cent and July (-) 0.58 per cent.

“The annual rate of inflation, based on monthly WPI, stood at (0.16 per cent) (provisional) for the month of August, 2020 (over August, 2019) as compared to 1.17 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year,” the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement on Monday.

Inflation core pointers

*Inflation in food articles during August stood at 3.84 per cent, whereas it was at 4.08 per cent in July. The rate of rise in potato prices stood at 82.93 per cent.

*Inflation in vegetables stood at 7.03 per cent, while in onion it was (-) 34.48 per cent.

*Non-food articles inflation contracted 1.46 per cent after contracting 3.57 per cent in July.

*Fuel and power index contracted 9.68 per cent in August against a fall of 9.84 per cent in the previous month.

*Manufactured products inflation witnessed hardening of inflation at 1.27 per cent in August against 0.51 per cent in July.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in its policy review last month kept interest rates unchanged and said it sees upside risk to inflation. The apex bank projected retention of inflation to moderate in October-March period.