Inflation up at 5.58 per cent

New Delhi, Jan 14 (UNI) Amid raising concerns over high price rise, the annual inflation rate moved further to 5.58 per cent for the week ended December 30 from 5.48 per cent the previous week, due to costlier fuel and food articles.

The inflation rate calculated on a point-to-point basis, stood at 4.56 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year, according to official figures released here.

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for all commodities for the week ended December 30, rose by 0.05 per cent to 208.1 from 208.0 for the previous week.

Earlier this week, Finance Minister P Chidambaram said inflation was being driven mainly by supply side constraints. He called on the industry to cut down the increasing rates of manufactured product prices.

''There is nothing wrong in making profits, but beware of entrenched core inflation. Cut costs to stabilise prices,'' he said.

The index for the Primary Articles group rose by 0.05 per cent to 212.5 from 212.4 for the previous week.

The index for Food Articles group rose by 0.1 per cent to 214.3 from 214.0 for the previous week due to higher prices of Poultry chicken (9 per cent), fish-marine (8 per cent) and arhar (2 per cent).

However, the prices of eggs and gram (3 per cent each) declined.

The index for non-food articles group declined by 0.3 per cent to 190.7 from 191.3 for the previous week due to lower prices of logs and timber (7 per cent), fodder (3 per cent), safflower (kardi seed) (2 per cent) and castor seed (1 per cent).

However, the prices of gingelly seed and cotton seed (2 per cent each) and groundnut seed (1 per cent) moved up.

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