Inflation climbs to 4.34 pc due to tobacco, fuel price

New Delhi, Mar 5: The annual rate of inflation climbed to 4.34 per cent for the week ending February 18, over the previous week's 4.02 per cent, mainly on account of higher tobacco and fuel prices.

The inflation rate, calculated on a point-to-point basis, was 4.89 per cent during the year-ago period, according to official figures released here.

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for all commodities rose by 0.3 per cent to 197.1 from 196.6 for the previous week.

The final WPI for all commodities for the week ended December 24, 2005 stood at 197.2 against 196.8 (provisional) week's level, while the inflation rate was pegged at 4.62 per cent against 4.40 per cent (provisional) for the same week.

The index for the primary articles group rose by 0.5 per cent to 195.2 from 194.3 for the previous week. The index for the food articles group declined by 0.2 per cent to 196.5 from 196.9 for the previous week due to lower prices of eggs (4 per cent), bajra (3 per cent), fruits and vegetables and jowar (2 per cent), and barely, condiments and spices (1 per cent each).

However, the prices of poultry chicken and fish marine, urad, arhar, moong and gram moved up.

UNI