Image Courtesy: TwitterAccording to official statistics released on Wednesday, India’s annual wholesale price index (WPI) inflation dropped to its lowest level in 21 months in November as food, petrol, and manufactured good prices declined. 5.85% was the WPI in November. This was the second month in a row that the WPI didn’t exceed the double-digit threshold.
Prior to October, wholesale inflation had been above 10% continuously since April 2021 for 18 straight months. “Decline in the rate of inflation in November 2022, is primarily contributed by fall in prices of food articles, basic metals, textiles, chemicals & chemical products and paper and paper products as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year,” the commerce and industry ministry said.
The results show that food item inflation in November was 1.07% compared to 8.33% in the preceding month.
Vegetables showed the largest decrease in November this year (-20.08% vs 3.44% last year), followed by eggs, meat, and fish (2.27% vs 9.4% last year), cereals (1.07% vs 4.82% last year), pulses (0.56% vs 2.84% last year), and fruit (-1.07% vs 15.50% last year).
Fuel and electricity inflation continued to decline significantly, coming in at 17.35% as opposed to 23.17% in October, while it was 3.59% for manufactured goods in November. “Although global commodity prices have remained volatile, the recent correction in such prices is likely to augur well for the core inflation. Overall, we project the WPI inflation to print at 5.6% in December 2022, similar to the 5.8% seen in November 2022, before easing to sub 2% by March 2023, on account of high base, unless commodity prices post a strong rebound, following re-opening in China,” credit rating agency Icra said in a report on the latest data.
The statistics come as consumer price inflation (CPI) declined sharply from 6.77% in October to an 11-month low of 5.88% in November.
