India hopeful of rate cuts despite marginal rise in inflation rate

However, prices of maize (up 2 percent), rice, bajra and jowar (up 1 percent each), niger seed (up 6 percent), castor seed (up 4 percent) and fodder (up 2 percent) surged.

The index for Fuel, Power, Light & Lubricants Group (which has a weight of 14.23 percent on the WPI) rose by 0.1 percent compared to previous week due to higher prices of aviation turbine fuel or jet fuel (up 4 percent) and furnace oil (up 1 percent).

The index for Manufactured Products Group (which has a weight of 63.75 percent on the WPI) advanced by 0.3 percent compared to previous week on account of higher prices in the following index groups: food products (up 1 percent), beverages, tobacco & tobacco products (up 0.6 percent), textiles (up 0.1 percent), chemicals & chemical products (up 1 percent) and basic metals alloys & metal products.

However, prices of items such as paper & paper products softened by 0.3 percent, non-metallic mineral products slipped by 0.1 percent, machinery & machine tools moved down by 0.3 percent and transport equipment & parts tumbled by 0.2 percent.

Some of the items to witness major decline in prices were unrefined oil (down 7 percent), imported edible oil (down 5 percent), rice bran oil (down 2 percent), groundnut oil and khandsari (down 1 percent each), steel ingots (down 6 percent), zinc ingots (down 2 percent) and cement.

However, the prices of products such as oil cakes (up 5 percent), gur (up 2 percent and sugar (up 1 percent), beer & alcohol (up 25 percent), soft drinks (up 1 percent) and zinc (up 10 percent) witnessed increases.