Need to review wholesale, retail price monitoring system: Pranab

"There is a need to review the present system of monitoring wholesale and retail prices of the essential commodities. I hope the inter-ministerial group would consider and deliberate on this issue and come out with concrete implementable suggestions,” Mukherjee said while addressing the first meeting of inter-ministerial group on inflation here.

He said there was also a need to improve the manner in which the available information was put to use in designing and formulating the required policy responses.

Fiscal as well as monetary policy makers have been struggling for over a year to control the soaring prices of essential commodities.

Despite some recent moderation, food inflation as well as inflation based on wholesale prices remained high is much above Reserve Bank of India targets.

The annual inflation based on wholesale prices was 8.23 percent in January and food inflation was 13.07 percent for the week ended Jan 29.

The inter-ministerial group on inflation has been setup by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to review the overall inflation situation in the country and suggest corrective measures. The group is chaired by the finance minister's chief economic adviser Kaushik Basu.