Wholesale Price Indices for Primary Articles and Fuel & Power in India (Base: 2004-05 = 100); Review for the week ended 14th January, 2012

The WPI for the week ended 14th January, 2012 in respect of ‘Primary Articles’ and ‘Fuel & Power’ is given below:

Primary Articles (Weight 20.12%)

The index for this major group remained unchanged at its previous week's level of 199.1 (Provisional).

The annual rate of inflation, calculated on point to point basis, stood at 1.89 percent (Provisional) for the week ended 14/01/2012 (over 15/01/2011) as compared to 2.47 percent (Provisional) for the previous week (ended 07/01/2012).

The groups and items for which the index showed variations during the week are as follows:-

The index for ‘Food Articles’ group rose by 0.3 percent to 191.4 (Provisional) from 190.9 (Provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of bajra (4%), fish-marine and jowar (3% each), ragi and barley (2% each) and wheat, maize and milk (1% each). However, the prices of fruits & vegetables, egg, gram, moong and condiments & spices (1% each) declined.

The index for ‘Non-Food Articles’ group declined by 1.5 percent to 179.9 (Provisional) from 182.6 (Provisional) for the previous week due to lower prices of flowers (18%), raw cotton (7%), sunflower (3%) and raw rubber, castor seed and copra (1% each). However, the prices of gaur seed (17 %), groundnut seed (3%) and raw jute, coir fibre, linseed, soyabean, rape & mustard seed and mesta (1 % each) moved up.

The index for ‘Minerals’ group rose by 0.7 percent to 325.1 (Provisional) from 322.8 (Provisional) for the previous week due to higher prices of zinc concentrate (6%), copper ore (4%), magnesite (2%) and iron ore (1%). However, the prices of dolomite (5%) and barytes (1%) declined.

Fuel & Power (Weight 14.91%)

The index and annual rate of inflation calculated on point to point basis remained unchanged at their previous week’s level of 172.7 (Provisional) and 14.45 percent (Provisional) for the week ended 14/01/2012 (over 15/01/2011).

Build up inflation over the week, financial year end and over the year is given in Annexure-I for some important items.

PIB.