India’s wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation rose to 2.38% (provisional) in February, 2025, primarily due to increase in prices of manufacture of food products, food articles, other manufacturing, non-food articles and manufacture of textiles etc. data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed on Monday. This is higher than the WPI rate in January which stood at 2.31 per cent.
The month over month change in WPI for the month of February stood at 0.06 per cent as compared to January 2025.
The month-over-month data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed that the index for primary articles decreased by 1.74 per cent to 186.6 (provisional) in February. Price of food articles (-2.05 per cent), crude petroleum & natural gas (-1.46 per cent), minerals (-1.26 per cent) and non-food articles (-0.36 per cent) decreased in February 2025 as compared to January 2025. The index for Fuel & Power increased by 2.12 per cent to 153.8 (provisional) in February from 150.6 (provisional) for the month of January. The manufactured products index increased by 0.42 per cent to 143.8 (Provisional) in February from 143.2 (Provisional) for the month of January.
Furthermore, per the release by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, inflation for food articles dropped significantly to 3.38 per cent in February as compared to 5.88 per cent in January. The inflation rate for primary articles went down to 2.81 per cent from 4.69 per cent in the previous month. The fuel and power inflation was at -0.71 per cent in February as compared to -2.78 per cent in January. And manufactured products inflation stood at 2.86 per cent in February.
Under the food articles category, vegetable inflation tanked to -5.80 per cent in February from 8.35 per cent in January. Pulses inflation during the month of February came in at -1.04 per cent, while the inflation for wheat stood at 9.58 per cent during the month in review. Eggs, Meat & Fish inflation dropped to 1.48 per cent in February from 3.56 per cent in the previous month. Potato and onion reported inflation at 27.54 per cent and 48.05 per cent respectively.
The non-food articles reported WPI inflation at 4.84 per cent in February as against 2.95 per cent in January. Minerals inflation went down to 0.98 per cent in February from 2.86 per cent in January. The Crude Petroleum & Natural gas posted wholesale inflation at -4.06 per cent in February and crude petroleum was at -7.99 per cent.
Earlier on March 12, data released by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation showed that India’s retail inflation, based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), for February stood at 3.61 per cent, dropping significantly from 4.31 per cent in January. This was down 65 basis points in comparison to January 2025.