On the back of increasing costs of metals and food items in proportion to the worldwide trend, inflation climbed up by a whopping 0.81% to 11-month high of 5.92% for the week ended Mar. 8, 2008, as against 5.11% during the last week.

With inflation just apart from 6% mark, it may not allow the central bank to slash interest rates regardless of slow industrial growth.

The Wholesale prices index -based inflation rate climbed up in spite of high base of 6.51% a year-ago.

Inflation got linked with the worldwide price movement as commodity rates and food costs are adding maximum to the domestic inflation data.

During the week, basic metal, alloys and metal products group ascended by 6.7 percent.

Prices of blooms and billets and slabs climbed 30%, wires of all kinds arose by 25%, steel and tensile plates prices came up by 20% and bars and rods by 3%.

Among food products prices of arhar, gram and moong climbed up by 3%.

Simultaneously, fruits and vegetables, maize, and condiments and spices were costly by 1%.

Manufactured products like imported edible oil, coconut oil, mustard oil, also became costlier.

The Indian government had also declared a ban on export of all edible oils with effect from 17 March for one year to control their rising prices.

The index for Primary Articles rose by 0.3 per cent to 229.8 points from 229 points the previous week. Under this, the index for Food Articles group rose by 0.3 per cent to 225.4 points from 224.7 the previous week.

The Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants group saw its index rise by 0.1 per cent from 337.5 points to 337.1 the previous week.

The heavyweight Manufactured Products group, with a weightage of 63.75 per cent, saw its index rise by a whopping 1.3 per cent to 193.2 points from 190.7 the previous week.

The index for Textiles group, however, declined marginally by 0.1 per cent to 128.2 points from 128.3 the previous week.