India’s wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation declined to 2.31% (provisional) in January, 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 Friday. This is marginally lower than the previous month’s WPI rate of 2.37 per cent.
The month over month change in WPI for the month of January, 2025 stood at (-)0.45 per cent as compared to December, 2024.
The month-over-month data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed that the index for primary articles decreased by 2.01 per cent to 189.9 (provisional) in January from 2.07 per cent for the month of December, 2024. The index for Fuel & Power increased by 0.47 per cent to 150.6 (provisional) in January from 149.9 (provisional) for the month of December, 2024. The manufactured products index increased by 0.14 per cent to 143.2 (Provisional) in January from 143.0 (Provisional) in December, 2024.
Furthermore, per the release by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, inflation for food articles dropped significantly to 5.88 per cent in January as compared to 8.47 per cent in December. The inflation rate for primary articles went down to 4.69 per cent from 6.02 per cent in the previous month. The fuel and power inflation was at -2.78 per cent in January as compared to -3.79 per cent in December. And manufactured products inflation went up to 2.51 per cent from 2.14 per cent in December.
Under the food articles category, vegetable inflation tanked to 8.35 per cent in January as compared to 28.65 per cent in December. Pulses inflation during the month of January went up marginally to 5.08 per cent in January, while the inflation for wheat came in at 9.75 per cent during the month in review. Eggs, Meat & Fish inflation dropped to 3.56 per cent in January from 5.43 per cent in the previous month. Potato and onion reported inflation at 74.28 per cent and 28.33 per cent respectively.
The non-food articles reported WPI inflation at 2.95 per cent in January as against 2.46 per cent in December. Minerals inflation went down to 2.86 per cent in January from 5.47 per cent in December. The Crude Petroleum & Natural gas posted wholesale inflation at -0.53 per cent in January and crude petroleum was at -0.76 per cent.
Yesterday, data released by the Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation showed that India’s retail inflation, based on the Consumer Price Index (CPI), for January stood at 4.31 per cent, dropping significantly from 5.22 per cent in December.