Wholesale price inflation rises 3.18% in April on higher food, fuel inflation

Riding on higher inflation in fuel and food, India’s wholesale price inflation (WPI) rose 3.18% in April, data released on Monday showed.

WPI was 2.47% in March 2018 and 3.85% in April 2017.

“The rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index consisting of Food Articles from Primary Articles group and Food Product from Manufactured Products group increased from (-) 0.07% in March, 2018 to 0.67% in April, 2018,” commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.

Statistics ministry is scheduled to release retail inflation data for April later today.

Wholesale inflation rose 7.85% in fuel and power and 3.11% in manufactured items compared with 4.7% and 3.03%, respectively.

Inflation in potatoes was 67.94% from 43.25% in March while that in fruit was 19.47% compared with 9.26% in the trailing month. However, inflation in onion and milk declined in the first month of the new fiscal.

Government also revised upwards the WPI for February to 2.74% from the provisional estimate of 2.48% released earlier.