India's wholesale price-indexed (WPI) inflation softened to 2.47 per cent in March from 2.48 per cent reported for the previous month, official data showed on Monday.

According to the Commerce Ministry data, the WPI inflation in March 2017 was more than double at 5.11 per cent.

"The annual rate of inflation, based on monthly WPI, stood at 2.47 per cent (provisional) for March 2018 (over March 2017) as compared to 2.48 per cent (provisional) for the previous month and 5.11 per cent during the corresponding month of the previous year," the ministry said in its report.

"Build up inflation rate in the financial year so far was 2.47 per cent compared to a build up rate of 5.11 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year."

On a sequential basis, expenses on primary articles, which constitute 22.62 per cent of the WPI's total weightage, inched up by 0.24 per cent, from an increase of 0.79 per cent in February.

The data disclosed that prices of food articles dipped by (-) 0.29 per cent from an acceleration of 0.88 per cent in the previous corresponding month.

On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, onion prices soared higher by 42.22 per cent whereas potato prices rose by 43.25 per cent.

In contrast, the overall vegetable prices in March deflated (-)2.70 per cent, against a fall of (-)0.50 per cent in the same month a year ago.

On April 12, the data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed that lower food prices eased March retail inflation to 4.28 per cent from 4.44 per cent in February 2018.

However, on a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the consumer price index (CPI) last month stood higher than the 3.89 per cent reported in March 2017.

The CSO data revealed that the consumer food price index (CFPI) stood at 2.81 per cent in March compared to 3.26 per cent in February 2018.