Wholesale prices based inflation surged to 2.59 percent in December 2019, as against 0.58 percent in November due to increase in prices of food articles. Among food articles, vegetable prices surged by 69.69 percent mainly on account of onion, which witnessed around 456 per cent jump in prices, followed by potato at around 45 percent.
According to the data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry , the rate of price rise for food articles rose to 13.12 per cent during December 2019 as against 11 per cent a month earlier, while for non-food articles it rose nearly four-fold to 7.72 per cent from 1.93 per cent in November.
The annual inflation, based on the monthly wholesale price index (WPI), was at 3.46 per cent during December a year ago. The consumer price index-based retail inflation, as per data, spiked to over a 5-year high of 7.35 per cent in December 2019 due to costlier food products.