The rate of inflation based on the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) fell to an eight-month low of 3.8% for the month of December 2018, according to data released by the government. The inflation was 4.64% in the previous month, and 3.58% in December 2017. The food inflation in December was almost nil at 0.07%, down from 3.31% in November.
The 3.8% inflation is lowest in the last 8 months, after it had reached 3.62% in April 2018. The build up inflation rate in the financial year so far was 3.27% compared to a build up rate of 2.21% in the corresponding period of the previous year.
The inflation for primary articles group, which includes food products, non-food articles, minerals and crude oil, was 2.28%, while the same for manufactured products group was 3.59%. The inflation in the ‘fuel and power’ group fell to 8.38% in December, down from 16.28% in the previous month.
Vegetables saw a decrease in prices, as the prices of vegetables saw deflation of 17.55% in the month of December 2018, which was 26.98% in November. Onions saw a massive deflation of 63.83%, due to continued fall in prices. Inflation in pulses was 2.11% in December, indicating a stabilisation of prices, compared to massive inflation on pulses a couple of years ago.
The inflation data on Consumer Price Index (CPI) will be released later today.