Taking 2004-05 as the base (100), the official Wholesale Price Index for food articles for the month of August 2012 declined by 0.4 per cent to 211.4 (provisional) from 212.2 (provisional) for the previous month.
This was attributed to the fall in the prices of fruits and vegetables (5%), poultry (4%), marine fish (2%) and milk (1%).
However, the prices of arhar (8%), ragi (7%), gram and urad (6% each), moong, coffee and wheat (5% each), bajra, condiments and spices and masur (4% each), egg, tea and inland fish (3% each), jowar, maize and rice (2 % each) and mutton and barley (1% each) rose.
Meanwhile, the index for manufactured food products rose by three per cent to 164.5 (provisional) from 159.7 (provisional) for the previous month due to higher prices of sugar (8%), oil cakes and gur (6% each), gram powder (besan), sooji (rawa) and gingelly oil (5% each), wheat flour (atta), khandsari and cotton seed oil (4% each), tea dust (unblended) and maida (3% each), mustard and rapeseed oil, vanaspati and mixed spices (2% each) and gola (cattle feed), groundnut oil, soyabean oil, bakery products, processed prawn and ghee (1% each).
However, the prices of tea leaf (unblended) (1%) declined.
