New Delhi: India’s wholesale inflation declined substantially during July to 13.93 percent but remains in double digits.
The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation has been in the double-digit for 16 months in a row now.
An official statement said that the inflation in July was primarily contributed by rising prices of mineral oils, food articles, crude petroleum and natural gas, basic metals, electricity, and chemicals.
Prices of minerals (0.96 percent) increased in July 2022 as compared to June 2022. Prices of food articles (-2.56 percent), non-food articles (-2.61 percent), and crude petroleum and natural gas (-5.05 percent) declined in July 2022 as compared to June 2022.
Further, prices of mineral oils (7.95 percent) and electricity (6.38 percent) increased in July 2022 as compared to June 2022.
In June, wholesale inflation was at 15.18 percent, as against 15.88 percent reported in May.
Meanwhile, According to National Statistical Office (NSO) data, India’s retail inflation fell to 6.71 percent in July from 7.01 percent in June, the lowest level in five months, helped by an easing in food and oil prices.
With this, retail inflation has been over the Reserve Bank of India’s upper tolerance band of 6 percent for the seventh consecutive month in a row.
In line with the global trend of monetary policy tightening to cool off inflation, the RBI has so far hiked the key repo rates — the rate at which the central bank of a country lends money to commercial banks — by 140 basis points.