India’s wholesale inflation high

High cost of ‘fuel and power’ due to the Russia-Ukraine war along with those of primary articles pushed up India’s March 2022 wholesale inflation to a 4-month high level.

Accordingly, the annual rate of inflation, based on wholesale prices, rose to 14.55 per cent last month from 13.11 per cent reported for February 2022.

Similarly, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) data furnished by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed an exponential rise last month over March 2021, when it stood at 7.89 per cent.

“The annual rate of inflation is 14.55 per cent (provisional) for the month of March, 2022 (over March, 2021) as compared to 7.89 per cent in March, 2021,” the Ministry said in its review of ‘Index Numbers of Wholesale Price in India’ for March.

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

Besides, the month over month change in WPI index for March, 2022 stood at 2.69 per cent as compared to February, 2022.

As per the data, the primary articles segment, which has one of the highest weightage in the WPI, increased at a faster rate of 15.54 per cent in March as compared to 13.39 per cent reported for February 2022.

In the fuel and power segment, which has a weightage of 13.15 per cent, the rise in inflation was recorded at 34.52 per cent from 31.5 per cent in February 2022.

The cost of manufactured products, which has a weightage of 64.23 per cent, increased at a faster rate of 10.71 per cent from 9.84 per cent.

Similarly, the growth rate of WPI food index, consisting of food articles from the primary articles group and food products from the manufactured products group, rose to 8.71 per cent from 8.47 per cent.