Wholesale Inflation: Wholesale inflation reached the highest level in 4 months in October, the effect of rising prices of food items was visible:

Wholesale Inflation : Wholesale price-based inflation rose to a four-month high of 2.36 percent in October. The main reason for this was the increase in the prices of food items, especially vegetables and manufactured goods. Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation was 1.84 percent in September 2024. It had declined by 0.26 percent in October 2023. According to the data, inflation of food items increased to 13.54 percent in October, while it was 11.53 percent in September. Vegetable inflation increased by 63.04 percent, while it was 48.73 percent in September.

Potatoes and onions have become expensive

Inflation in potatoes and onions remained high at 78.73 percent and 39.25 percent respectively in October. Inflation in the fuel and power category stood at 5.79 percent in October as against 4.05 percent in September.

Inflation in manufactured goods stood at 1.50 percent in October, as against 1 percent in the previous month. Wholesale price-based inflation saw a rise for the second consecutive month in October.

Retail inflation reached a 14-month high.

Before October, the wholesale price-based inflation was the highest at 3.43 percent in June 2024. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry said in a statement on Thursday, "The main reason for the increase in inflation in October 2024 was the increase in prices of food items, manufacturing of food products, other manufacturing, manufacturing of machinery and equipment, manufacturing of motor vehicles, trailers, and semi-trailers, etc.''

Retail inflation rose to a 14-month high of 6.21 percent amid a sharp rise in food prices, according to Consumer Price Index data released earlier this week.

Impact on Repo Rate

This level of retail inflation is higher than the limit set by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which may make it difficult to cut policy interest rates in the policy review meeting in December. RBI mainly takes retail inflation into account while formulating monetary policy. The central bank kept the policy rate or repo rate unchanged at 6.5 percent in its monetary policy review last month.