Inflation continued to rise unabated, touching a 44-month high of 7.83 per cent in the week ended May 3, as costlier food and industrial fuel prices belied hopes of the government for prices to stabilise.

At the same time, the government revised upwards to 7.78 per cent, the inflation for the week ended March 8 from the provisional 5.92 per cent, leading to apprehensions that the initial figures of rate of rising prices are grossly understated.

After inflation had touched 7.61 per cent as of April 26, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that "it (inflation) is stable and not statistically significant."

Experts said that the continuing upsurge in inflation is set to increase the dilemma of the government and RBI on whether to address slowing growth or check rising prices.

Crisil principal economist D K Joshi said, "I think inflation would continue to move up in coming weeks as there is pressure of depreciating currency and high crude prices."

A depreciating Rupee is offsetting fiscal measures taken by the government, leading to import of inflation, he said.

During the week, prices of fruits and vegetables went up by 3 per cent, coffee 6 per cent, maize 4 per cent, spices and masoor by 1 per cent each. Even in manufactured category atta, coconut oil, khandsari turned costlier.

Owing to flaring global crude oil prices, prices of some industrial fuels like naphtha increased by seven per cent, furnace oil by four per cent, light diesel oil and bitumen by two per cent. Crude prices touched $126 a barrel last week.

However, prices of cement, iron and steel fell.

Friday's figure of 7.83 per cent is the highest since 7.87 per cent during the week ended September 11, 2004 as per the provisional figures and since 7.86 per cent for the week ended September 18, 2004 as per the final figures.

Last week, Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that the prices of essential commodities had begun to come down and this would be reflected in the inflation index after some time.

He had said that the inflation figures released last Friday had come as a 'big relief' as it showed that the prices have stabilised.

Meanwhile, reports said that retail food prices had generally remained steady in the early part of May, despite the rise in inflation.

Barring groundnut oil, prices of 13 essential commodities in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai retail markets remained steady during the week ended May 9, according a government statement.

Prices of pulses and edible oils that have risen in the last few weeks due to short supply of the commodity in the country have remained unchanged.

In order to arrest rising food prices, the government on March 31 had cut the import duty on all edible oils. It extended the ban on export of pulses for one more year. Last week, it also suspended chana, potato, soya oil and rubber from futures trading.

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