New Delhi: Wholesale price inflation shot up to 9.87 percent in June, from 9.68 percent in May, led by a sharp spike in prices of food and non-food items.
The sharp rise in WPI inflation reflects the impact of the West Asia crisis, the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which the majority of crude oil is imported into India, and its spillover effect on food prices.
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"Mineral Oils (containing Petroleum Products), Food Articles, Manufacture of Basic Metals, and Manufacture of Chemicals and Chemical Products have been major drivers of WPI inflation in June 2026," the commerce and industry ministry said while releasing the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) data.
The base year for calculating WPI is 2022-23.
Wholesale inflation in fuel and power was 27.41 percent in June, as against 30.33 percent in May, data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry on Tuesday showed.
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Inflation in food articles was 5.49 percent in June, up from 3.60 percent in May. Non-food articles WPI inflation was 11.07 percent, while in minerals it was 9.45 percent in June.
In manufactured products, inflation was unchanged at 7.48 percent as in May.
Retail or consumer price index-based inflation too had surged to a 17-month high of 4.38 percent in June, as against 3.93 percent in the previous month.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which mainly factors in CPI when arriving at its monetary policy, has been mandated by the government to ensure that headline inflation remains at 4 percent, with a 2 percent margin on either side.
Last month, the RBI raised its inflation projection for the current fiscal year to 5.1 percent from 4.6 percent, largely due to mounting input costs, driven by the pass-through of higher global energy prices to retail petrol and diesel prices.
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