India’s WPI inflation spikes to 14.55% in March: Govt data

The WPI inflation has remained in the double digits for the 12th consecutive month beginning April 2021.

“The high rate of inflation in March, 2022 is primarily due to rise in prices of crude petroleum & natural gas, mineral oils, basic metals, etc owing to disruption in global supply chain caused by Russia-Ukraine conflict,” the government said in its press release.

The food articles segment witnessed a rise of 8.06 per cent in March, the data showed. In the month prior to that, this was 8.19 per cent. The marginal month-on-month easing can be attributed to a fall in vegetable prices.

Vegetable prices rose 19.88 per cent in March, against a rise of 26.93 per cent in February, the data showed. Prices of potato climbed 24.62 per cent while that of onions slipped (-)9.33 per cent. However the prices of fruits witnessed a spike of 10.62 per cent last month from 10.30 per cent in February, while that of wheat rose 14.04 per cent from 11.03 per cent a month ago. Eggs, meat and fish prices rose 9.42 per cent in March up from 8.14 per cent a month ago while cereals rose 8.12 per cent last month from 6.07 per cent.

The fuel and power segment spiked to 34.52 per cent last month from 31.50 per cent in February. Petrol price rose by 53.44 per cent, HSD (High-Speed Diesel) gained by 52.22 per cent and LPG prices inched by 24.88 per cent.

The manufactured products segment rose 10.71 per cent in March, up from 9.84 per cent in the month prior.

In a separate data released last week, the country’s retail inflation, which is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), rose to 6.95 per cent in the month of March.