Wholesale prices in India rose at the quickest pace in at least 27 months in June, driven higher by food items, data released by the commerce ministry showed on Tuesday.
WPI inflation rose to 9.87% in June, from 9.68% in May, and is the highest in the new series, which has data from April 2024.
The spurt in wholesale prices is being transmitted to retail levels, and could reflect more on consumer price index in the coming months. Retail inflation hit an 18-month high of 4.38% in June, breaching the Reserve Bank of India’s medium-term target of 4% for the first time since January 2025.
WPI food inflation rose to an 18-month high of 6.14% in June. Higher food inflation pushed up the headline print by as much as 43 basis points relative to May, according to Rahul Agrawal, Principal Economist, ICRA.
“Wholesale prices across most food items have witnessed a hardening in their YoY inflation prints in early-July 2026 relative to June 2026, suggesting that the WPI-food inflation is likely to inch up somewhat in the ongoing month,” Agrawal said.
Primary articles inflation increased to 7% in June from 4.99% in May, led by a rise in non-food articles inflation and minerals inflation.
Manufactured products inflation stayed steady at 7.48% in June while fuel and power inflation moderated to 27.41% last month from 30.33% in May. Core WPI inflation, which excludes food and fuel items, eased to 7.5% in June from 7.7% in May.
“WPI inflation at 9.9% for June is significant because it is more generalized than before being broad based,” said Madan Sabnavis, chief economist, Bank of Baroda. “Quite clearly the days of low inflation are over.”
The Ministry of Commerce and Industry had released the revised WPI series in June along with new Producer Price Indices. The new WPI and the output and input PPIs have 2022-23 (Apr-Mar) as the base year.
Output PPI inflation rose to a series high of 9.57% in June from 9.38% in May. The trial input PPI for manufacturing sector jumped to 107.1 in June from 104.9 in May. WPI inflation is expected to stay high in the near-term, with economists projecting the July print around 9%.
“While WPI inflation was expected to temper down due to the peace treaty being signed, the resumption of war and the turmoil again in the oil sector could keep the momentum up,” Sabnavis said.
Sequentially, wholesale prices rose 0.3% in June, the slowest month-on-month increase in 8 months.
Input prices, based on the input PPI for manufacturing sector, increased 2.1% month-on-month in June, higher than 0.7% in May. “This could reflect the continued margin pressure across a number of manufacturing sub-sectors with limited pass-through to output prices,” HDFC Bank economists said in a report.
Report by Shubam Rana
Source: Financial Express

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