New Delhi, Feb 14 (IANS): Lower prices of manufactured goods and a slight dip in fuel cost eased India's January 2022 wholesale inflation on a sequential basis.

Accordingly, the annual rate of inflation, based on wholesale prices, eased to 12.96 per cent last month from 13.56 per cent reported for December 2021.

However, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) data furnished by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry showed an exponentially rise last month over January 2021, when it stood at 2.51 per cent.

"The high rate of inflation in January, 2022 is primarily due to rise in prices of mineral oils, crude petroleum and natural gas, basic metals, chemicals and chemical products, food articles etc as compared the corresponding month of the previous year," the Ministry said in its review of 'Index Numbers of Wholesale Price in India' for January.

"The month over month change in WPI index for the month of January, 2022 stood at 0.35 per cent as compared to December 2021."