Consumer Price Index in March up 7.6 pc y-on-y

New Delhi, Apr 29 (UNI) The Consumer Price Index for Urban Non-Manual Employees CPI (UNME) was higher by 7.6 per cent over an year ago, but higher by one point over February, 2007.

The highest increase in the index was in the case of Rajkot, at 13.2 per cent and the lowest in Asansol, with an increase of 4.1 per cent.

In Delhi the index went up by 5.3 per cent, in Kolkata 7.2 per cent, Mumbai 7.7 per cent and Chennai 6.8 per cent, thus the variation in the index for the four metros is not too high.

The CPI (UNME), which has its base 1984-85 = 100, was released here by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO).

Along with the All-India Index, indices for 50 selected urban centres were also released by the CSO, which is under Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The States where the Index recorded high growth were Hyderabad (9.3 per cent), Muzzaffarpur (10.8 per cent), Gwalior (10.3 per cent), Jabalpur (11.1 per cent), Aurangabad (12.9 per cent), Shillong (10.9 per cent), Kharagpur (11.4 per cent), Coimbatore (9 per cent) and Ajmer (9.4 per cent).

On the other hand, the index recorded lower rise in the cost of States like Chandigarh (5.0 per cent), Allahabad (4.9 per cent), Madurai (5 per cent), Hubli (5.4 per cent), Indore (5.4 per cent), Trivandrum (4.7 per cent).

The differential in the index for various centres varies from 4.1 to 13.2 per cent.

The increase is less than five per cent for four centres, five to six per cent for seven centres, 6.1 to 7.0 per cent for 11 centres and 7.1 to 9 per cent for 24 centres and 9.1 per cent for the remaining 13 centres.

About 31 centres have lower annual percentage increase as compared to that of All-India figure of 7.6 per cent and remaining 28 centres recorded higher percentage increase as compared to the All-India average.

UNI