Price index woes, wholesale

New Delhi, Nov 8 : The government's move to report the full data on the wholesale price index only on a monthly basis, instead of the decades-old practice of revealing the numbers every week, appears to have backfired.

The cabinet approved the move recently in a bid to curb volatility in the markets. But when selective weekly data was released a few days ago, media reports chose to highlight what is called "food inflation" that stands at a whopping 13.39 percent on an annual basis. The fact that the annual inflation for primary articles and fuels stood at minus 6.2 percent, which the government sought to portray, was hardly highlighted.

"I think, we seem to be 'injecting' volatility, rather than 'curbing' volatility," remarked a senior minister who, incidentally, had opposed the move when it was brought before the cabinet in February during the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government.