New Delhi: Denying the comfort of having a falling inflation for the eleventh straight month, the prices of two household commodities — pulses and onions —have shot up phenomonally in September, forcing the government to have an emergency meeting on Wednesday to address the issue.
The wholesale prices of pulses (38.56 per cent up) and onion (113.70 per cent up) increased in September, defying deflationary trend. Inflation based on wholesale price index (WPI) fell for 11th straight month in September, contracting by 4.54 per cent primarily due to tumbling oil prices. Food inflation inched up to 0.69 percent in September against a contraction of 1.13 per cent in August.
Alarmed by the rise in the price of pulses which shot to Rs 190 a kg, an inter-ministerial group (IMG) headed by finance minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday reviewed the price situation and decided to invoke the Rs 500-crore Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) to reduce the retail price of imported pulses.
