India's Wholesale Inflation at 14.55%, Centre Cites Russia-Ukraine War

The WPI Inflation for the month of January was at 13.68% while it was 13.11% in February. Image used for representational purposes. 

(Photo: The Quint)

The annual rate of inflation is 14.55 percent (provisional) for the month of March as compared to 7.89 percent in March 2021, the Centre said on Monday, 18 April.

"The high rate of inflation in March 2022 is primarily due to rise in prices of crude petroleum and natural gas, mineral oils, basic metals, etc owing to disruption in global supply chain caused by Russia-Ukraine conflict," the Centre said.

According to data, the Wholesale Price Inflation (Provisional) (WPI) for the month of January was at 13.68 percent while it was 13.11 percent in February.

The month over month change in WPI index for the month of March 2022 stood at 2.69 percent as compared to February 2022.

What Have Experts Said?

Suman Chowdhury, Chief Analytical Officer, Acute Ratings & Research said that the data reinforces the presence of stronger inflationary pressures in the manufacturing and the services sector, reported Business Insider.

She said:

"With the sharp rise in crude oil prices and the breach of $100 pb consequent to the intensification of the Russia-Ukraine conflict from end February, 2022, there has been an acceleration in commodity prices and this is visible in both the sequential rise in primary commodities and fuel and power index of 2.1 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively."

Meanwhile, Aditi Nayar, Chief Economist, ICRA said that the inflation is a broad-based one following the spike in commodity prices amidst the geopolitical tensions.

She said, "The sequential dip in the food and beverages index in March 2022, and the associated decline in its inflation rate has provided some relief, after the sharp rise seen in the CPI food inflation last week."

Sunil Kumar Sinha and Paras Jasrai of India Ratings and Research (Ind-Ra) said in a note that core inflation rose to 10.9 percent in March, which was led by the "uptick in inflation of manufactured items such as basic metals, chemicals and textiles," reported BusinessLine.

Ind-Ra said, "As the margins of the manufacturers have been under pressure due to the rising input costs, transportation and logistics, they are passing it on to their output prices leading to higher inflation in manufactured products."

(With inputs from Business Insider, BusinessLine.)