Updated on Thursday, November 05, 2009, 15:33 IST Tags:Inflation, Food

New Delhi: The government on Thursday presented a more realistic picture of the price situation saying the inflation of food items shot up by 13.39 percent during the week ended October 24 driven mainly by soaring prices of potato and onion.

A new system for presenting inflation data of primary articles and fuel on weekly basis, which has been introduced from today, says prices of potato have doubled during the one-year period ending October 24, 2009.

The prices of onion have also shot up by 50 percent during the year, while pulses rose by 23.45 percent. The inflation for primary articles, which also include non-food items, grew by 8.94 percent.

This captures the price situation in a better way than the annual inflation of all the items, according to which the inflation was only 1.51 percent for the week ended October 17.

The other items, which recorded over 10 percent increase in prices are rice (12.19 percent) and milk (10.3 percent).

On the other hand, the non-food items, which include fibre, oil seeds and minerals, declined by 0.25 percent. Also the index of fuel, power, light and lubricants decreased by 6.2 percent.

However, as compared to the previous week, there was some easing of the prices with the index of primary articles, based on movement in wholesale prices, declining by 0.1 percent.

Bureau Report