Experts apprehend the likelihood of poor monsoon coupled with rising oil prices on the back of political tension in Iraq, may further aggravate the domestic scenario.The rise in inflation has been mainly due to 31.44 per cent increase in prices of potato, 19.40 per cent in fruits and 12.75 per cent in rice, according to the official data on Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation. The food inflation stood at 9.50 per cent last month, while the manufactured inflation was 3.55 per cent.
"The Government is seized of the matter and is committed to ease supply side constraints. The rise in prices of food articles can also be attributed to withholding of stocks on account of apprehension of a weak monsoon," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said while commenting on the inflation data.
He also said the state governments should take effective steps to ensure that hoarding is discouraged.
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