India’s wholesale inflation dropped to 3.85% in February, the lowest in two years since January 2021 when it was 2.03%, data released by Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday showed. The wholesale inflation was 4.73% in January this year.
This is the ninth consecutive month that the price rise indicator in wholesale markets has registered a decline. It is also the fourth consecutive month that the wholesale inflation rate has remained in single digits.
The drop in the wholesale inflation rate in February was mainly due to marginal slow down in the price rise of manufactured items as well as fuel and power.
The wholesale inflation in manufactured products dropped slightly from 2.99% in January to 1.94% this month. The price rise in fuel and power also came down to 14.82% in February from 15.15% a month before that.
The wholesale inflation in crude petroleum and natural gas fell from 23.79% in January to 14.47% in February. Crude petroleum prices saw a significant drop of from 5.01% to -10.22%.
In case of food articles, inflation rose to 3.81% in February from 2.38% in January.
Data released on Monday showed India’s retail inflation has eased off to 6.44% in February from three-month high of 6.52% in January.
However, despite the fall, February’s retail inflation was above the tolerance level of the Reserve Bank of India for the second consecutive month. The central bank aims to keep inflation between 2% and 6%. In November, retail inflation had settled within the RBI’s tolerance level for the first time in 2022.
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