At 1.26%, wholesale inflation rises to 13-month high in April

Sandeep Dikshit

New Delhi, May 14

Fuelled by high food prices, especially a whopping 23.6 per cent inflation rate for vegetables, the wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation rate stood at 1.26 per cent in April 2024.

Increase in the prices of electricity, crude petroleum and natural gas, manufacture of food products and other manufacturing also contributed to the rise in WPI, according to the government data released today.

High prices of onion (59.75 per cent) and potato (71.97 per cent) and pulses (16.58) also added to the woes of consumers. Of the three major groups, the inflation rate for primary articles rose to 1.97 per cent in April. While prices of crude petroleum and natural gas (3.56 per cent) and food articles (2.67 per cent) increased as compared to March, prices of non-food articles (-1.19 per cent) and minerals (-1.55 per cent) declined in April.

Some of the important groups that showed month-over-month increase in prices are basic metals; other manufacturing; textiles; food products; and, chemical and chemical products.

Heatwave likely to jack up prices: ICRA

• The wholesale food inflation, which is at a four-month high, will continue to be a cause for concern in May and June as heatwave is likely to jack up prices of perishable commodities, ICRA Chief Economist Aditi Nayar said
• Although the impact of high base of last year will play out in July and August, the impact of monsoon will determine the price conditions in the subsequent months
• She said we would have low food inflation in July and August; things would normalise after that as half of the monsoon would be over

Vegetable inflation shoots to 23.60%

• In the food articles segment, the inflation rate rose to 7.74% as against 6.88% in March. Vegetable inflation was at whooping 23.60% in April, up from 19.52% in the previous month
• Inflation in potato jumped to 71.97% in April from 52.96% in March. In onion, it was 59.75% in April as against 56.99% last month