Inflation drops to 3.01%

Inflation declined to 3.01 per cent for the week ended November 10, against 3.11 per cent in the previous week, mainly due to fall in prices of some food articles.

The wholesale price based inflation stood at 5.39 per cent a year ago.

The food articles group showed a fall of 0.3 per cent due to lower prices of urad (6 per cent), fruits and vegetables, and condiments and spices (1 per cent each), according to official data released here today.

There was a marginal increase in the prices of cement, and manufactured food products such as bran (6 per cent), rice bran oil (3 per cent) and sooji (1 per cent). However, prices of groundnut oil fell by 2 per cent.

Although the prices of crude oil have almost touched $100 a barrel, it did not impact the inflation rate as the government has not passed on the burden to consumers.

Prices of fuel power light and lubricant group, which has a weight of 14.23 per cent in the wholesale price index, remained unchanged at its previous week's level.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram, while speaking at a function, said on Friday: "It is important to factor in price increase and adjust our policies so that inflation doesn't get out of hand."