The country’s core inflation also rose 0.3% in the month, compared with 0.1% in September, the data showed.
“Inflation in October, 2024 is primarily due to increase in prices of food articles, manufacture of food products, other manufacturing, manufacture of machinery & equipment, manufacture of motor vehicles, trailers & semi trailers, etc,” the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which released the WPI numbers, said in a statement.
The Wholesale Price Index or WPI measures the change in prices of goods sold and traded in bulk by wholesale businesses with other companies. Unlike the CPI which tracks prices of goods and services purchased by consumers, WPI tracks factory gate prices and retail prices.
Prices of food items (3.37%) and crude petroleum & natural gas (0.41%) increased in October, 2024 as compared to September, 2024. The price of
minerals (-1.67%) and non-food articles (-0.37%) declined in October, 2024 as compared to September, 2024.
Price of electricity (1.18%) increased in October, 2024 and price of mineral oils (-0.84%) and coal (-0.07%) decreased in October, 2024 as compared to September, 2024.
Meanwhile, Manufactured goods prices increased by 0.49 % to 142.5 in October, 2024 from 141.8 for the month of September, 2024. This was largely driven by the higher costs of making food products.
The Food Index consisting of ‘food articles’ from primary articles group and ‘food product’ from manufactured products group increased from 195.3 in September, 2024 to 201.2 in October, 2024. The rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index increased from 9.47% in September, 2024 to11.59% in October, 2024.
The wholesale prices inflation spike follows the increase in Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation for October as well. The index reached 6.21%, higher than CNBC-TV18’s poll estimate of 6% and significantly above September’s rate of 5.5%.
The Reserve Bank of India targets retail inflation at 4%, with tolerance level of two percentage points on either side.
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