Retail inflation for industrial workers eases to 6.16% in June: Ministry

Retail inflation for industrial workers eased to 6.16 per cent in June from 6.97 per cent in May this year due to lower prices of certain food items and petrol.

"Year-on-year inflation for the month stood at 6.16 per cent compared to 6.97 per cent for the previous month (May 2022) and 5.57 per cent during the corresponding month (June 2021) a year before," a labour ministry statement said.

It said the food inflation stood at 6.73 per cent in June against 7.92 per cent in the previous month and 5.61 per cent in June 2021.

The all-India CPI-IW (consumer price index for industrial workers) for June 2022 increased by 0.2 points and stood at 129.2 points. CPI-IW was 129 points in May 2022.

The maximum upward pressure in the current index came from Food & Beverages group contributing 0.20 percentage points to the total change.

Potato, onion, tomato, cabbage, apple, banana, coriander, chilli dry, fish fresh, poultry chicken, vada, idli dosa, cooked meal, cooking gas, kerosene oil, electricity domestic etc. were responsible for the rise in the index.

However, it said this increase was largely checked by petrol for vehicle, rice, mango, chilli green, lemon, lady finger, parwal, pineapple, soyabeen oil, sunflower oil etc, putting downward pressure on the index.

The index is compiled for 88 centres and all-India and is released on the last working day of the succeeding month.

Puducherry centre recorded the maximum increase of 2.6 points followed by Amritsar and Tripura with 2.2 points and 2 points, respectively.

Total 15 centres recorded increase between 1-1.9 points, 33 centres between 0.1-0.9 points. On the contrary, Sangrur recorded a maximum decrease of 2.4 points.

Five centres recorded decrease between 1-1.9 points, 25 centres between 0.1-0.9 points. Rest of 6 centres' indices remained stationary.

The Labour Bureau, an attached office of the Ministry of Labour & Employment, has been compiling CPI-IW every month on the basis of retail prices collected from 317 markets spread over 88 industrially important centres in the country.