Reading the numbers. "Inflation" here is the
year-on-year change in the wholesale price index — how much higher wholesale prices are than the same month a year earlier. It is not the same as prices themselves, which the index (a separate toggle) tracks. A number falling from, say, 6% to 3% means wholesale prices are still rising, just more slowly (disinflation); only a reading below zero means they actually fell (deflation, which WPI reached from late 2014 through mid-2016, briefly in April–July 2020, in mid-2023, and again in several months of 2025). Unlike CPI,
WPI has no RBI target band — it is a cost gauge, not a policy target, though it feeds into GDP deflators and input-cost pressure. All Commodities is a weighted average of Primary Articles, Fuel & Power and Manufactured Products (weights 22.76 / 14.11 / 63.13 on the 2022–23 base; 22.62 / 13.15 / 64.23 on the old 2011–12 base); the Food Index cuts across primary and manufactured food.
The latest two months are provisional (shown dashed) and are revised in later monthly releases. On the discontinued 2011–12 base, March and April 2026 remain provisional: no OEA release with final old-base figures for them could be located, and the values shown are those in its last old-base index file (monthly_index_202606.xls), which differ slightly from the April 2026 press print (e.g. All Commodities April 167.6 vs 167.0). Source:
Office of the Economic Adviser, DPIIT.