By IANS,
New Delhi : Even as food inflation for the week ended April 30 was recorded at a lower 7.7 percent, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Thursday said increased prices of non-food items were keeping overall inflation on the higher side.
“Sustained high non-food primary prices are creating cost-push inflationary conditions in the manufacturing sector. Thus, even though food inflation is declining, the concern on higher core inflation remains,” he said.
The recent monetary policy announcements should help in addressing these concerns, Mukherjee said, adding that food inflation should moderate further in the coming weeks.
Food inflation was recorded at 8.53 percent for the week ending March 23. In a bid to tame inflation, the Reserve Bank of India had earlier this month hiked key interest rates by 50 basis points.
The finance minister said that non-food articles had continued to exhibit high inflation, in the range of 25 to 28 percent over the past many weeks, making overall inflation in primary articles sticky.
According to the latest figures, the index of primary articles remained in double digits at 11.96 percent.