Price Rise of Food Commodities; Inflation hikes to 6.01 per cent in May

The inflation figures for March was revised to 6 per cent from 5.70 per cent reported earlier. The previous high was 6.4 per cent in December.

In the manufactured goods category, food items which became expensive include tea leaf (unblended) (11 per cent), tea leaf (blended) (8 per cent), gur and bakery products (4 per cent each), gola (cattle feed) and processed prawn (3 per cent each), copra oil and ghee (2 per cent each) and mixed spices, khandsari and oil cakes (1 per cent each).

However, the price of tea dust (unblended) declined by 3 per cent, groundnut oil and gingelly oil (2 per cent each) and soyabean oil and sunflower oil (1 per cent each).

The data further revealed that dried tobacco became expensive by 8 per cent and cigarette by 2 per cent.

In the textiles group category, manmade fabric, jute sacking cloth, jute sacking bag and cotton fabric became dearer by one per cent each, though prices of jute yarn declined by 4 per cent and tyre cord fabric and gunny and hessian cloth by one per cent each.

Similar price increase was noticed in other categories like wood and wood products, paper and paper products, leather and leather products, rubber and plastic products and chemicals and chemical products.

Items in metals, machinery and machine tools and transport equipment categories too became expensive during May pushing up the overall inflation rate.

With PTI inputs.