India’s wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation eased to 0.85 per cent (provisional) for the month of April 2025, data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed on Wednesday. The positive rate of inflation is primarily due to increase in prices of manufacture of food products, other manufacturing, chemicals and chemical products, manufacture of other transport equipment and manufacture of machinery and equipment etc. This is lower than the WPI rate in March which stood at 2.05 per cent.
The month over month change in WPI for the month of April 2025 stood at (-) 0.19 per cent as compared to March 2025.
The month-over-month data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed that the index for primary articles decreased by 0.11 per cent to 184.4 (provisional) in April 2025 from 184.6 (provisional) for the month of March. The price of crude petroleum & natural gas (-5.31 per cent), non-food articles (-1.78 per cent) and food articles (0.36 per cent) increased in April 2025 as compared to March 2025. The index for Fuel & Power decreased by 2.82 per cent to 148.1 (provisional) in April 2025 from 152.4 (provisional) for the month of March 2025. The manufactured products index increased by 0.35 per cent to 144.9 (provisional) in April 2025 from 144.4 (provisional) for the month of March 2025.
Furthermore, per the release by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, inflation for food articles dropped significantly to -0.86 per cent in April as compared to 1.57 per cent in March. The inflation rate for primary articles went down to -1.44 per cent from 0.76 per cent in the previous month. The fuel and power inflation was at -2.18 per cent in April as compared to 0.20 per cent in March. And manufactured products inflation stood at 2.62 per cent in April.
Under the food articles category, vegetable inflation dropped to -18.26 per cent in April from -15.88 per cent in March. Pulses inflation during the month of April came in at -5.57 per cent, while the inflation for wheat stood at 7.41 per cent during the month in review. Eggs, Meat & Fish inflation went down to -0.29 per cent in April from 0.71 per cent in March. Potato and onion reported inflation at -24.30 per cent and 0.20 per cent respectively.
The non-food articles reported WPI inflation at 1.40 per cent in April as against 1.75 in March. Minerals inflation went up to 9.69 per cent in April from 2.84 per cent in March. The Crude Petroleum & Natural gas posted wholesale inflation at -15.55 per cent in April and crude petroleum was at -19.85 per cent.
Reacting to this, Rahul Agrawal, Senior Economist, ICRA Limited, said, “ICRA expects the WPI-food inflation to soften further in May 2025 (+7.8 per cent in May 2024) from 2.5 per cent in April 2025 (+6.1 per cent in April 2024), aided by the favourable base as well as relatively favourable trends in wholesale prices of essential food items in the ongoing month so far. This, along with the softening in commodity and crude oil prices, is expected to augur well for the WPI print for May 2025. We expect the same to ease slightly to ~0.5-0.8 per cent in the month (+2.7 per cent in May 2024) from 0.9 per cent in April 2025 (+1.2 per cent in April 2024).”
Looking ahead, he added, the IMD’s expectation of an early monsoon onset in Kerala and an above normal monsoon in the country is a positive for crop output, and consequently, the food inflation outlook, although the spatial and temporal distribution of the same remains key. “We expect the WPI to average sub-2 per cent in FY2026, which along with our CPI inflation and real GDP projections for the fiscal implies that nominal GDP growth may be capped at ~9 per cent,” he said.