Anticipating good monsoons as predicted by the Met department, the government is confident that prices of essential commodities that had skyrocketed in the past, would cool off in a few months. Inflation is already on a decline for some time though consumer price index in the country is at a higher level.

Wholesale price food inflation dropped from 18.63 %on January 1 to about 16% on April 24. But the average inflation based on the consumer price index of items consumed by industrial workers has been about 14.6 % for February and March. ?A good monsoon, predicted by the Met Department in its first monsoon forecast, is vital for the economy and it would bring down the prices of essential items,? finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Wednesday at a CII conference. Rising food prices, Mukherjee said, is a concern as it erodes real income. He added that the way the government meticulously planned economic recovery in the past one year, high inflation would also be addressed in the next few months. Inflation is already declining, he said, adding that the CPI-based inflation is higher mainly because food items have significant weight of the index basket.

Planning Commission had also said that manufacturing and food inflation will be at an acceptable level by August-September. Overall WPI inflation stood at 9.9 % in March?well above the comfort zone of RBI and the government?and the data for April would be released on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the minister also pointed out that the Indian economy that is on the recovery path would perform better than the growth rate pegged by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The IMF has pegged the growth for 2010 at 8.8% and for 2011 at 8.4%. ? I expect even better,? he said.

The economic growth for 2009-10 would be at 7.2%, a significant achievement considering an unfavourable monsoon that dampened the farm sector growth, Pranab said.