Wholesale Inflation in India Decreases

This was down from 2.38 percent in February, and the lowest in the past four months.

The positive rate of inflation in March was primarily due to an increase in prices of manufacture of food products, other manufacturing, food articles, electricity and manufacture of textiles, etc., said the ministry in a statement.

The decrease in wholesale inflation was attributed to a drop in food prices, even as the food inflation eased to 1.57 percent in March from 3.38 percent in February, primarily driven by a substantial deflation in vegetables.

However, inflation in Manufactured Products rose to 3.07 percent in March from 2.86 percent in February, and Fuel and Power inflation turned positive at 0.20 percent in March compared to 0.71 percent in February.

The annual inflation rate for Primary Articles in the WPI declined to 0.76 percent in March from 2.81 percent in the previous month. The ministry data also showed that the annual rate of inflation based on the WPI Food Index decreased to 4.66 percent during Match from 5.94 percent in February.

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