On the contrary, the Survey, presented in Parliament, appreciated the efforts of the Manmohan Singh government and RBI to stem inflation, but did not hazard a guess on the outlook for 2005-06 in the face of five per cent inflation projections for the current financial year going awry.

"Quick monetary and fiscal measures taken by RBI and government, coupled with a slight easing of global petroleum prices, inflation has been on a declining trend and stood at 5.01 per cent on February 5 compared to 6.1 per cent a year ago," the survey presented by Finance Minister P Chidambaram said.

Inflation for both manufactured and primary articles were lower at 5.1 per cent and 1.8 per cent respectively as on January 22, 2005, but there was acceleration in inflation for fuel and power group from 7.7 per cent to 10.1 per cent.

It said there was "sudden bout of inflation" in the first half of this fiscal caused by a combination of factors, some exogenous like sharp rise in petroleum prices, deficient rainfall-induced inflationary expectations and monetary over-hang from accretion of forex reserves.

The 52-week average inflation rate in the country was 6.4 per cent till February 5, 2005, higher than 5.5 per cent registered a year ago, the survey said.