New Delhi, Oct 29 (IANS) India’s annual rate of inflation, based on wholesale prices, rose to 1.51 percent for the week ended Oct 17 from 1.21 percent the week before, data released Thursday showed.
The official Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for the week ended Oct 17 remained unchanged at its previous week’s level of 242.2 (provisional) as the index for primary articles and fuel, power, light and lubricants declined 1 percent while manufactured products rose by 1 percent.

Among primary articles, prices of tea, maize, arhar, condiments, mutton and spices were up 1 percent while fish and marine products was down 6 percent, according to the data released by the industry ministry.

Over the 52-week period ended Oct 17, wholesale prices of onions rose by over 28 percent, 22.84 percent for potato, 20.39 percent for vegetables, 15.65 percent for rice and 16.34 percent for pulses, while sugar rose 28.37 percent.

While the WPI is currently released on a weekly basis, the government had Oct 19 approved a proposal to release it every month instead.

The base year for the new monthly inflation data will be 2004 instead of 1993 as followed now for the weekly inflation data.

The release of monthly WPI is expected to commence Nov 14.

The government has said that the response to week-to-week inflation data was poor, particularly from the manufacturing sector, but hoped the monthly data would reflect the position better. However, the WPI for primary articles would continue to be released every week.