ONION BLAST

INFLATION AGAIN @ 6 MONTHS HIGH

Inflation again shooted up to 6 months high of 6.1 percent in August leaving little room for the new RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan to rate cut in his maiden  monitor policy. He is scheduled to announce mid quarter Monitor Policy Review on Friday...

Wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation rose for the third straight month, driven by a whopping 244.62 per cent jump in onion prices on annual basis. WPI inflation was 5.79 per cent in July. Inflation in the vegetable basket as a whole was 77.81 per cent and in the fruit segment it was 8.17 per cent in August. The food segment as a whole became costlier by 18.8 per cent during the month.
On the positive side, potato prices fell by about 15 per cent, followed by pulses which became cheaper by 14 per cent. In the case of manufactured items, sugar and edible oils became cheaper by 4.2 per cent and 3.86 per cent, respectively. Overall, manufactured items showed a moderate increase of 1.9 per cent during the month on annual basis.

The WPI data showed that the build-up inflation rate in the financial year so far was 3.91 per cent compared to a build-up rate of 4.35 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year.

On month-on-month basis, inflation in primary articles rose by 3.8 per cent in August. The index for 'Food Article' group rose by 5.3 per cent and that of fruits and vegetables by 13 per cent in August over the previous month.
The index for 'Minerals' group rose by 0.7 per cent in August on sequential basis.
The Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council has projected the year-end inflation at 5.5 per cent.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation, popularly known as retail inflation, was 9.52 per cent in August.