Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said he is "confident" that the headline inflation will remain between 6.5-7.5 per cent in 2012-13, even as the government takes remedial
measures to control rising food prices.
India's
inflation moved up to 7.55 per cent in May as compared to 7.23 per cent in the previous month, mainly driven by a sharp increase in the price of food items, which added to the woes of policy makers as the economic growth remains under pressure.
"I'm confident that range of inflation will be around 6.5-7.5 per cent throughout the year," Mukherjee told reporters in the national capital.
"I hope if the monsoon is quite good, then it will be possible that this type of pressures will be sorted out," Mukherjee said.
He also said the government would take remedial measures to curb food inflation by addressing supply side bottlenecks.
"We have to address supply constraints, (concerning) cold chaining and warehousing facilities."
Food inflation surged to double digits in May. It rose to 10.74 per cent in May, compared to 8.25 per cent in the previous month as vegetables, pulses, milk, egg, meat and fish became costlier, pinching the pockets of common people.
FROM THE MAGAZINE: Govt inaction behind poor growth indicatorsFood inflation had re-entered the double-digit zone after a gap of six months in April and the trend continued in May.
Prices of vegetables surged 49.43 per cent year-on-year. Potato price went up 68.10 per cent. Milk became costlier by 11.90 per cent. Prices of eggs, meat and fish rose 17.89 per cent. Pulses became costlier by 16.61 per cent.
Mukherjee said food inflation was partly impacted due to seasonality of some of the food items such as pulses and vegetables.
"These (pulses and vegetable) are the commodities in which prices have increased," he said.
Prices of manufactured products increased by 5.02 per cent year-on-year, while price of fuel and power grew by 11.53 per cent. Petrol prices went up by 10.51 per cent.
In May, the three state-owned oil marketing
companies hiked petrol prices by Rs 6.28 a litre excluding local taxes, the steepest such hike in recent times.
The companies later
retracted the hike by Rs 2 per litre due to the falling global crude prices.
However, petrol as an item has lower weightage in the wholesale price index of about 1.09 basis points and does not primary impact the headline inflation.
Diesel on the other hand has a higher weightage in the index of about 50-75 basis points due to larger usage in the transportation sector. High speed diesel prices went up by 9.24 per cent.
FROM THE MAGAZINE: Petrol price hike will not help govt much The recent data showed that India continued to face the problem of high inflationary pressure and low growth.
According to the data released by the Central Statistics Office last week,
India's industrial output grew marginally by 0.1 per cent in April due to poor show of mining and manufacturing sectors.
The factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), had declined by 3.5 per cent in industrial production in March, the first such contraction in factory output since October 2011, when it shrank by 4.7 per cent.
The sharp fall in factory output is expected to put pressure on the
central bank to cut key interest rates.
The Reserve Bank of India is scheduled to hold its mid-quarterly policy review on June 18.
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