Wholesale Inflation In January Eases To 2.30% After Decline In Consumer Price Index

After the consumer price index, or CPI, which measures retail inflation, the data for Wholesale inflation has also been published.

The wholesale price index or WPI, for the month of January declined to 2.30 per cent. This is marginally lower than the previous month, December's WPI rate of 2.37 per cent.

Earlier this week, the retail inflation, or CPI index, which is the most preferred means of measuring inflation, suggested that the national inflation rate dipped to 4.31 per cent, easing from the previous month's 5.22 per cent.

How has the WPI Eased?

This positive rate of inflation in January 2025 is largely being attributed to an change in prices of manufactured food products, food articles, other manufacturing, non-food articles and manufacture of textiles etc.

This minor decrease is being driven by a dramatic decline in the rate of inflation of Primary Articles. These primary articles include food items among other things.

The rate of inflation on primary articles declined from the previous month's 6.02 per cent to 4.69 per cent in January.

In addition the rate of inflation on Fuel & Power changed from the previous -3.79 per cent to the new -2.78 per cent (negative).

An increase in rate was only seen in the case of  Manufactured Products, where the WPI index increased from December's 2.14 per cent to 2.51 per cent now.

Essential Items

When we look closer into the rate of infation in Food Articles, the primary component of the Primary Articles, the rate of inflation declined from December's 8.47 per cent to 5.88 per cent in January.

When we look at some of the crucial aspects of this metric, the inflation rate on potatoes stood at 74.28 per cent, compared to 93.20 per cent in the previous month.

When it comes to onion, another crucial component of an Indian diet, the rate of inflation here increased to 28.33 per cent, from the previous month's 16.81.

In addition, the ROI on Milk increased marginally to 2.69 per cent, from the previous 2.26 per cent.