Inflation as the Government sees it
As per the statement of Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance on inflation issued yesterday:
1. Annual rate of inflation, year on year as conventionally measured, declined to 8.98 per cent for the week ending November 1, 2008 compared to a rate of 10.72 per cent reported in the previous week and 12.91 per cent on the week ending August 2, 2008.
2. Wholesale price index in the current week declined by 1.26 per cent from 238.5 as on October 25, 2008 to 235.5 on November 1, 2008.
3. Inflation declined to a single digit level after 21 weeks. Inflation in the same period as on November 3, 2007 in the previous year at 3.35 per cent, however, was significantly lower.
4. In the case of ‘manufactured products', rate of inflation in the current week further declined to 8.06 per cent, as compared to 9.09 per cent in previous week. Out of 318 commodities, a large number, 284 in all, have shown no increase in prices over the last week.
5. Inflation of 30 essential commodities increased to 7.74 per cent as on the week ending November 1, 2008 from 7.51 per cent reported in the earlier week. There was a decline in the prices of 5 of these commodities and prices of other 16 commodities remained unchanged. Prices of remaining 9 items, viz. rice, jowar, bajra, gram, arhar, masur, potatoes, mutton, and gur witnessed some increase.