NEW DELHI, OCT 5: The annual rate of inflation continued its incredible southward run to touch 3.75 per cent for the week ended September 20, the lowest in 11 years.

This is the second time in six weeks, inflation based on wholesale price index (WPI) has dropped to 3.75 per cent, the lowest since January 11, 1986.The fall is all the more creditable since it comes on top of a hike in petroleum products in the first week of September, which had a direct impact of 0.74 percentage points on inflation.

During the week, the annual rate of inflation fell by 0.29 percentage points to 3.75 per cent (provisional) compared to 4.04 per cent (provisional) in the previous week and 6.62 per cent in the corresponding week last year.

In the reference week, the index for `all commodities' (base 1981-82=100) fell marginally to 329.2 (provisional) from 329.3 (provisional) the week before.

Meanwhile, the rate of inflation based on the final index fell to a historical low of 3.6 per cent for the week ended July 26 (latest available), as against 4.0 per cent for the week based on the provisional index. The final index for all commodities for the week stood at 324.7 as against the provisional index of 325.9.

During the week under review, among the three major groups in WPI, indices of `primary products' and `manufactured products' moved down marginally, while the index of `fuel, power, light and lubricants' (FPLL) moved up.

The FPLL group, which mostly consists of commodities under administered price mechanism (APM), has jumped to 370.7 from 349.2 in four weeks time due to the five to 26 per cent hike in the prices of petroleum products.

In the reference week, the index for primary articles declined marginally to 337.3 from 337.4 in the previous week.

Among the subgroups in primary articles, index for `food-articles' went up while that of `non-food articles' eased. The food articles' index went up by 0.2 per cent to 386.2 from 385.6 the week before due to firming up of prices of gram (2 per cent) and jowar, fruits and vegetables and mutton (1 per cent each).

However, prices of eggs (-3 per cent), arhar (-2 percent) and bajra, maize and barley (-1 per cent each) eased during the week. Index for non-food articles went down by 0.4 per cent to338.6 from 339.9.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.