By IANS,
New Delhi : India’s annual rate of inflation, based on the wholesale price index, eased to 9.59 percent in April from 9.9 percent a month ago, official data showed Friday.
The annual inflation rate was 1.31 percent in April 2009.
Data released by the commerce ministry showed prices of food articles jumped 16.87 percent last month, compared to 16.65 percent in March 2010.
Prices of primary articles rose 13.88 percent in April, a lower rate of increase from the 14.1 percent seen in the previous month.
Manufactured products became expensive by 6.7 percent during the month under review.
The revised February 2010 annual inflation stood at 10.06 percent, against 9.89 percent reported earlier.
The government has been saying that inflation is on the decline after the fresh rabi crop arrived as food prices being the main reason behind the spiralling overall inflation since last year’s lows.
For the fiscal ending March 2011, government statisticians and the Reserve Bank of India, forecast the annual inflation will be around 5 percent.
Economists and the finance Minister are banking on a good monsoon and the weather department expects the June-September rains to be 98 percent this year, which it describes as normal.
Latest food inflation figures showed a slight spike after two straight weeks of decline, rising 16.44 percent for the week ended May 1.
The food inflation stood at 16.04 percent the previous week having declined from 16.61 percent during the week ended April 17 against 17.65 percent of the week that ended April 10.