New Delhi: Wholesale price inflation shot up to 9.87 per cent in June, from 9.68 per cent in May, led by a sharp spike in prices of food and non-food items.
The sharp rise in WPI inflation reflects the impact of the West Asia crisis, the effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, through which the majority of crude oil is imported into India, and its spillover effect on food prices.
“Mineral Oils (containing Petroleum Products), Food Articles, Manufacture of Basic Metals, and Manufacture of Chemicals and Chemical Products have been major drivers of WPI inflation in June 2026,” the commerce and industry ministry said while releasing the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) data.
The base year for calculating WPI is 2022-23.
Wholesale inflation in fuel and power was 27.41 per cent in June, as against 30.33 per cent in May, data released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry Tuesday showed.
Inflation in food articles was 5.49 per cent in June, up from 3.60 per cent in May. Non-food articles WPI inflation was 11.07 per cent, while in minerals it was 9.45 per cent in June.
In manufactured products, inflation was unchanged at 7.48 per cent as in May.
Retail or consumer price index-based inflation too had surged to a 17-month high of 4.38 per cent in June, as against 3.93 per cent in the previous month.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which mainly factors in CPI when arriving at its monetary policy, has been mandated by the government to ensure that headline inflation remains at 4 per cent, with a 2 per cent margin on either side.
Last month, the RBI raised its inflation projection for the current fiscal year to 5.1 per cent from 4.6 per cent, largely due to mounting input costs, driven by the pass-through of higher global energy prices to retail petrol and diesel prices.
