<div>Snapping the declining trend, the inflation rose to a three month high of 5.7 per cent in March mainly due to spurt in prices of food items like potato, onion and fruits.</div><div> </div><div>The inflation in the food items, based on the wholesale price index (WPI), shot up by 9.9 per cent in March as against 8.12 per cent in the previous month.</div><div> </div><div>The overall WPI inflation, which was on decline since December, had dropped to a nine-month low of 4.68 per cent in February.</div><div> </div><div>As per the data released by the government Tuesday, the January inflation number has been revised upward to 5.17 per cent as against earlier estimate of 5.05 per cent.</div><div> </div><div>In March, price rise in potato was 27.83 per cent as against 8.36 per cent in the previous month. Inflation in onion was 1.92 in the last month of 2013-14 fiscal compared to contraction in price of the kitchen staple in the previous month.</div><div> </div><div>Overall the inflation in vegetable segment was 8.57 per cent as compared to about 4 per cent in February. Fruits were costlier by 16.15 per cent in March compared to 9.92 per cent.</div><div> </div><div>The government further said the build up of inflation rate in the 2013-14 financial year was 5.70 compared to a build up rate of 5.65 per cent in the earlier fiscal.</div><div> </div><div>The data further revealed that prices of sugar, pulses, cereals, cement and minerals eased in March compared to the previous month.</div><div> </div><div>Inflation in the fuel and power category (LPG, petrol and diesel) rose to 11.22 per cent versus 8.75 per cent in February.</div><div> </div><div>Later in the day, government is also scheduled to release data for retail inflation calculated on Consumer Price Index (CPI).</div><div> </div><div>In the monetary policy review earlier this month, the Reserve Bank had retained the key interest rate expecting rise in inflationary expectations.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>(PTI)</div>
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