Wholesale price inflation increased to 2.37 per cent in December 2024, driven by a rise in manufactured products, as per government data released on Tuesday. This marks an increase from the 1.89 per cent recorded in November 2024 and 0.86 per cent in December 2023.
“Positive rate of inflation in December, 2024 is primarily due to increase in prices of food articles, manufacture of food products, other manufacturing, manufacture of textiles and non-food articles etc,” the Ministry of Commerce & Industry said in the release.
According to the data, inflation in food items eased slightly to 8.47 per cent in December 2024 from 8.63 per cent in the previous month. The inflation rate for vegetables was 28.65 per cent, marginally higher than November’s 28.57 per cent. Inflation in potatoes remained high at 93.20 per cent, while onions saw a spike to 16.81 per cent in December.
Some food items like cereals, pulses, and wheat experienced a reduction in inflation during December. The fuel and power category recorded a deflation of 3.79 per cent, improving from a deflation of 5.83 per cent in November. Inflation in manufactured items rose to 2.14 per cent from 2 per cent in the previous month.
On the retail front, data released on Monday indicated that consumer price index (CPI) based inflation eased to a four-month low of 5.22 per cent in December, attributed to declining food prices.