Daily grocery bills have been rising in the past few months, and are likely to get even dearer, as wholesale inflation or Wholesale Price Index (WPI) touched six-month high of 3.59 percent in October as against 2.60 percent in September.
The data released by the ministry of commerce and industry on Tuesday showed that inflation in food articles more than doubled to touch 4.30 percent in October.
Vegetables prices soared to 36.61 percent in October as against 15.48 percent in September. In specific, prices of onions skyrocketed to 127.04 percent for the month in review, while for the eggs, meat and fish segment, the rate of price rise was 5.76 percent, according to the press releases.
On the other side, fuel inflation has remained high for the past three-four months as petrol and diesel prices continued to rally due to surge in global crude price.
Same trend reflected on the October inflation, as fuel and power segment rose to 10.52 percent, as against 9.01 percent in September. Another important thing needs to be noted is that high inflation of fuel and power has cascading effect on the whole economy. Almost all commodity prices go up with an increase in price of fuel.
However, inflation in manufactured products saw a slight dip to 2.62 percent, as against 2.72 percent in September. Even, price of pulses continued to be deflated at 31.05 percent.
According to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data released on Monday, retail inflation for October rose to a seven-month high of 3.58 percent on costlier food items, especially vegetables.
Last month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has raised its inflation target to 4.2-4.6 percent for the second half of this fiscal year from 4-4.5 percent, reflecting the combined impact of unfavourable base effects, the upturn in food prices.
"The broad-based and rather unseasonal spike in vegetable prices was the chief factor that pushed up the primary food inflation to 4.3% in October," Moneycontrol quoted ICRA's Principal Economist Aditi Nayar as saying.
