Price tags are seen on the samples of rice and lentils that are kept on display for sale at a wholesale market in the old quarters of Delhi.
Credit: Reuters File Photo
New Delhi: India’s wholesale price index-based inflation (WPI) declined to a three-month low of 1.89 per cent in November from 2.36 per cent in October, helped by softer increase in prices of food items, especially vegetables, official data showed
on Monday.
Wholesale food inflation eased to 8.63 per cent in November from a high of 13.54 per cent in October. Vegetables became costlier by 28.57 per cent year-on-year in November. Potato price in the wholesale market was 82.79 per cent higher when compared with the same month last year.
Although vegetables as well as the overall food inflation remained high, the pace of price rise in these segments was slower when compared with October.
Price of onion, which had surged by 39.3 per cent year-on-year in October, posted a softer increase of 2.85 per cent in November.
On a month-on-month basis prices of food articles declined by 1.83 per cent and that of crude petroleum & natural gas by 0.41 per cent in November, as per data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
“The reduction in food inflation helped in pulling down the wholesale inflation to a three-month low in November 2024. Favorably, the inflation in other major segments such as core, energy and fuel & power remained benign,” said Paras Jasrai, senior economic analyst at India Ratings and Research.
Fuel and power recorded a contraction in prices to the tune of 5.8 per cent in November 2024, the fourth straight decline, while prices for energy and minerals declined by 3.6 per cent.
While the disinflationary trend was visible at a broad-based level, inflation in edible oil accelerated to over a three-year high of 28 per cent in November, largely due to the surge in global prices and low base effect.
Wholesale core inflation increased to a four-month high of 0.5 per cent in November. However, it remained benign due to a sustained decline in metal prices. There was a broad-based uptick in inflation at the sub-sectoral level. Overall, 13 out of the 21 industries within core witnessed a higher inflation in November 2024 compared to the previous month.