Skyrocketing prices of domestic fuels group pushed up the inflation to a two-year high of 5.13 per cent for the week ended March 8, against a mere 1.76 per cent in the year-ago period. Belying RBI’s hopes of ‘benign inflation’, the wholesale price index (wpi) rose by 0.44 per cent from the week-ago’s close of 4.69 per cent, due to a two per cent price hike in fuel, power, light and lubricants and a marginal, but effective rise in primary items. With only a few days to close the current fiscal, the wpi inflation had breached the five per cent mark twice, raising concerns for the policy planners. Apparently showing the real effects of the Budget, the wpi rose by 0.4 per cent to 170.2, despite heavy-weighted manufactured products’ prices keeping cool, though prices of fuel, which has a direct impact on it, kept rising off and on. The index was 161.9 in the previous year. A two per cent price hike in vegetables, along with rise in the prices of other food and non-food articles, jacked up the index for primary articles by 0.2 per cent to 177.7 and the index was 167.4 a year-ago period.
