Country?s food inflation rose marginally for second weeks in a row, which are mainly attributed to dearer fruits and vegetables.
According to data released by the commerce and industry ministry on Thursday, the food inflation rose to 16.49% for the week ending May 8 from 16.44% recorded in the previous week. This was mainly because of nominal increase in the prices of essentials vegetables such as onion and potato and pulses.
This may raise concern for the government as mainly because of expectation of a normal monsoon and significant increase in rabi (winter crop) production, the food inflation rate had just started to look downward a month back.
However analysts said that food inflation would come down significantly only in the later half of the fiscal when the impact of a normal monsoon becomes visible on agricultural crop production.
On a weekly basis, vegetables turned expensive by 2.41%, onions turned dearer by 5.73%, potatoes by 0.95% and fruits by 0.41%, while prices of cereals like urad and moong rose by 2% each.
According to a Fe analysis early this week, food prices remained stable across all major cities in the country during the week ended May 17 because of good supplies and flat demand.
Traders said with summer setting in most parts of the country supplies of some key fruits and vegetables have gone down, putting pressure on prices. The rising truck freights because of low availability of carriers are also putting an added pressure on prices of perishable commodities.
Most market watchers feel that the commodity prices, including that of fruits, vegetables, milk and poultry products will show a definite declining trend once the southwest monsoon starts setting in over the country.
The India Meteorological Department on Monday said that south-west monsoon has arrived over parts of Andaman and Nicobar islands and Bay of Bengal, almost two days ahead of schedule, raising hopes that the June-September rains would hit the mainland from Kerala coast ahead of its normal predicted date of May 30.