After retail inflation, wholesale inflation has also increased in the month of May. Wholesale inflation in the country increased to 9.68 percent in May, which was 8.26 percent in April. In fact, the impact of the rise in prices of fuel and electricity products and food items has also been seen on inflation.
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry released the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation data on Monday after revising the base year from 2011-12 to 2022-23. Wholesale inflation in the fuel and electricity segment increased to 30.33 percent in May, which was 24.89 percent in April. The inflation rate of crude petroleum was 61.51 percent in May, whereas it was 56.31 percent in April.
Impact of West Asia crisis visible
The main reason for the increase in wholesale inflation was due to the West Asia crisis and the effective blockage of the Strait of Hormuz from where India imports most of its crude oil. This also affected food prices. Inflation in food items stood at 3.60 percent in May, which was 2.43 percent in April. Inflation rate in manufactured products increased to 7.48 percent, which was 6.68 percent in April. Retail or Consumer Price Index (CPI) based inflation also reached a 16-month high of 3.93 percent in May. In April it was 3.48 percent.
RBI also increased the estimate
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) mainly takes into account retail inflation while deciding monetary policy. The government has set a target of maintaining the overall inflation rate at four percent with a variation of two percent on either side. Earlier this month, RBI increased the inflation estimate for the current financial year 2026-27 from 4.6 percent to 5.1 percent. The main reason for this was said to be the increase in the cost of raw materials due to increase in global energy prices which had an impact on retail petrol and diesel prices. Due to the increase in global crude oil prices, the prices of petrol and diesel had increased by Rs 7.50 per liter in the second fortnight of May.
There was also an increase in retail inflation
Earlier on Friday, retail inflation figures were released. Retail inflation increased to 3.93 percent in May 2026, which was 3.48 percent in April. This has been the fifth consecutive month when an increase in the inflation rate has been recorded. Although it is still around the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) target of 4 percent, rising prices have raised concerns about the coming months.
