Retail inflation for industrial workers surged to 6.6 per cent in January 2019 due to higher prices of certain food items, shows a data released by the Labour Ministry.

"The All-India Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers (CPI-IW) stood at 5.11 per cent during the same month (January 2018) last year and 5.24 percent during January," Ministry of Labour & Employment said in a statement.

Consumer price index numbers for industrial workers is designed to measure a change over time in prices of a given basket of goods and services consumed by a defined population (i.e. Industrial Workers).

According to the Ministry, the food inflation stood at (+) 0.97 per cent against (-) 0.96 per cent in the previous month and 3.36 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year.

The maximum upward pressure to the change in current index came from Housing group contributing (+) 5.16 per cent points to the total change. At item level, wheat, arhar dal, fish, goat meat, coconut, lady's finger, tomato, flowers/flower garlands, were responsible for the increase in index.

However, this increase was checked by onion, brinjal, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, gourd, peas, potato, cooking gas, electricity charges, etc., putting downward pressure on the index.

The data highlighted that the All-India CPI-IW for January, 2019 increased by 6 points and pegged at 307. On one-month percentage change, it increased by (+) 1.99 per cent between December, 2018 and January, 2019 when compared with the increase of (+) 0.70 per cent for the corresponding months of last year.

At centre level Nagpur reported the maximum increase of 21 points followed by Nasik (17 points), Amritsar, Quilon, Jharia (13 points each) and Jaipur (12 points). Among others, 11 points increase was observed in 3 centres, 10 points in 7 centres, 9 points in 3 centres, 8 points in 5 centres, 6 points in 9 centres, 5 points in 6 centres, 4 points in 7 centres, 3 points in 7 centres, 2 points in 7 centres and 1 point in 6 centres.

On the contrary, Darjeeling recorded a maximum decrease of 4 points followed by Siliguri (3 points). Among others, 2 points decrease was observed in 4 centres and 1 point in 2 centres. Rest of the 4 centres' indices remained stationary.

The indices of 35 centres are above All-India Index and 42 centres' indices are below national average. The index of Rourkela centre remained at par with All-India Index, it added.

The Consumer Price Index for Industrial Workers, which includes selected services and is measured on the basis of retail prices, is used to determine the dearness allowance of employees in both the public and private sectors. This is the appropriate indicator of general inflation.

Edited by Chitranjan Kumar