Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation data for India has been released on Monday. According to this data, India’s WPI inflation has fallen again, bringing some relief to a long cycle of rising prices. As per official updates, this wholesale inflation has declined to 4.95 percent hitting another low as compared to previous figures. The WPI inflation data comes now, after retail inflation data was released, which also showed an ease to 5.72 per cent.
In December too, India’s WPI inflation numbers for November 2022 came as a sigh of relief as global headwinds were suggestive of constantly rising prices. Back then, the wholesale inflation eased to 5.85 per cent and also hit a 21-month low, breaking a long cycle of high prices.
Even though the world economy showed signs of an economic downturn, the Indian economy, as per experts, stayed relatively insulated. The decline in inflation rate of November 2022 was primarily due to a fall in prices of food articles, basic metals, textiles, chemicals and chemical products when compared with November 2021.
As far as October’s WPI inflation numbers go, back then, the wholesale inflation stood at 8.39 per cent, which was still higher and somewhat troubling for the economy on many fronts. While the month-on-month change between October and November WPI inflation numbers contracted by 0.26 per cent, it was the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that also gauged a lot of eyeballs.
Over the last couple of months, inflation has been a tricky road to manage for the government and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). However, with the recent release of the retail inflation numbers, it can be understood that the situation is coming under control as even retail inflation now remains below RBI’s tolerance level for a second straight month.
