New Delhi:
In February this year, the WPI Inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index was recorded 2.38%. It was 2.31% in January, compared to 0.2% in February 2024 last year. According to government data, inflation has increased due to the increase in prices of manufactured goods such as food products, food articles, non-food items and textiles. This information was given in the government data released on Monday.
Bounce in food prices prices
According to the data, inflation of manufactured food products increased to 11.06%. The prices of Vegetable Oil recorded an increase of 33.59%, while the beverages’ inflation increased marginally to 1.66%. However, there has been some softness in vegetable prices, especially potato inflation has come down from 74.28% to 27.54%.
Fuel and electricity prices fall
Fuel and power category saw a decline of 0.71% in February, compared to a decline of 2.78% in January. This indicates that inflation in the energy sector is still under control.
Decline in retail inflation
According to data from the Consumer Price Index (CPI) released on Wednesday, retail inflation declined to 3.61% in February, the lowest in the last seven months. The main reason for this was the fall in the prices of food items.
Wholesale inflation has remained positive for the last one year. However, for 18 consecutive months in 2022, WPI inflation remained in double digits, which increased the burden of inflation on consumers.
RBI’s impact of repo rate cut by RBI
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) maintained the repo rate at 6.5% for the last five years to keep inflation under control. Recently, RBI has tried to promote the economy and consumer expenses by reducing it 25 basis points.