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Inflation falls to 6.5 per cent for week ending March 17

BS Economy Bureau

The annual point-to-point rate of inflation fell to 6.5 per cent for the week ending March 17, despite a steep rise of 0.7 per cent in prices of primary articles. Inflation was 6.51 per cent in the previous week.

The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation level continues to remain below the seven per cent level in March after remaining above eight per cent for three months. The drop in the WPI-based inflation level during the month has been on account of the high base effect of last year's inflation. The inflation level had gone up from 3.5 per cent in February 2000 to 5.5 per cent in March 2000.

Inflation was 5.37 per cent in the corresponding week last year. The inflation rate based on the final WPI for 'all commodities' (base: 1993-94 = 100) for the week ending January 20, 2001 stood at 8.70 per cent as against a provisional level of 8.29 per cent reported earlier.

At a disaggregated level, the index for primary articles went up by 0.7 per cent while that for manufacturing fell by 0.2 per cent over the week.

The prices of commodities in the major group of fuel, power, light and lubricants remained unchanged at last week's level.

Within the major group of primary articles, the index for the sub-group of food articles rose by 0.8 per cent while that for the non-food articles' group rose by 0.5 per cent. Prices of fruits and vegetables rose by three per cent while those of sunflower rose by a sharp 23 per cent.

The index for the manufactured products group fell by 0.2 per cent to 143.5 from 143.8 in the previous week despite rise in the prices of paper, transport equipment parts, chemicals and basic metal items.

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