Wholesale price inflation rises to 1.84% in Sep as food prices spike

The wholesale price inflation rose to 1.84 per cent in September as food items, especially vegetables, turned costlier, as per the government data released on Monday.

The wholesale price index (WPI)-based inflation was 1.31 per cent in August. It was (-)0.07 per cent in September last year.

As per the government data, inflation in food items shot up to 11.53 per cent last month against 3.11 per cent in August.

This was led by 48.73 per cent inflation in vegetables as against (-)10.01 per cent in August.

Inflation in potato and onion continued to be high at 78.13 per cent and 78.82 per cent, respectively in September.

Fuel and power category witnessed deflation of 4.05 per cent in September against a deflation of 0.67 per cent in August.

"Positive rate of inflation in September 2024 is primarily due to increase in prices of food articles, food products, other manufacturing, manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers & semi-trailers, manufacture of machinery & equipment, etc," the commerce and industry ministry said in a statement.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which mainly takes into account retail inflation while framing monetary policy, kept benchmark interest rate or repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent in its monetary policy review earlier this month.

Retail inflation numbers will be released later in the day.