Retail price inflation in rural areas up 13 pc

The wholesale price inflation was negative for 10 weeks in a row, but retail prices of items consumed by people in villages rose at the rate of nearly 13 per cent in the month of July.

The wholesale price inflation was negative for 10 weeks in a row, but retail prices of items consumed by people in villages rose at the rate of nearly 13 per cent in the month of July.

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Inflation based on consumer price index for agriculture labourers rose from 11.52 per cent in June to 12.90 per cent in July, while the one based on consumer price index for rural labourers went up from 11.26 per cent to 12.67 per cent last month.

This is in sharp contrast to the wholesale price inflation which remained negative for 10 straight weeks, even though it rose slightly to (-)1.53 per cent during the week ended August 8.

The variation between wholesale price inflation and consumer price-based inflation is mainly because of high weightage of food items in consumer price indices.

This means that food prices are rising at high rates, which analysts said would show further tendency to move upwards due to erratic monsoon and increased minimum support price announced by the government for paddy and pulses.

Retail prices based inflation rose as the All-India Consumer Price Index numbers for agricultural and rural labourers for July rose by 15 points and 14 points to stand at 499 points and 498 points, respectively.