It was the lowest since September 27, 1997, when it stood at 3.47 per cent. The decline in the inflation rate was despite the jump in the prices of food articles, beverages tobacco and tobacco products and chemical products. It had been on decline for sixth consecutive week since April 3 this year.However, the inflation rate had been much above the 6.5 per cent at 6.58 per cent during the corresponding week last year.

The latest 0.03 per cent slide in the inflation rate was on account of fall in the prices of fodder, rice bran oil, rapeseed oil, mustard seed oil, khandsari, gingelly oil, and newspaper. But tea, bajra, raw tobacco, bidis, sulphuric acid, castor oil, ports and poles became costlier during the week under review. The inflation rate never touched the double digits for the successive214th week since April 1, 1995, pushing the old record of 1993 by the wayside which stood at single digits for 52 weeks in succession.Due to tight economic measures, the inflation rate had been kept under leash since the beginning of this year. The prices of food grains and other essential commodities had been declining considerably. In matter of 19 weeks it had clipped off 1.48 per cent though somewhat erratic.

Contrary to expectations, the inflation rate had been coming down. Many economic pundits thought it might go up due to rail freight and budgetary hikes. However, debt market update had predicted that the inflation rate would witness lower levels by the end of this year. In comparison, the inflation rate based on consumer price index industrial workers up by 0.31 per cent to 8.95 per cent in March from 8.64 per cent in the previous month, while maintaining its single-digit reign for the third month. It had touched single digit after a gap of eight months. This zig-zag trend in the inflation rate wasdue to variation in retail prices of essential commodities. The offical WPI for all commodities (1981-82) recorded a 0.1 per cent rise to 356.2 on May 8 from 355.8 in the previous week. This uptrend in the index was due to jump in the indices of food articles and beverages, tobacco and tobacco products.