Wholesale price-based inflation accelerated to a 10-month high of 3.10 per cent in January mainly because of costlier food articles, particularly onion and potato, official data showed on Friday.

The wholesale price index (WPI) based inflation was 2.59 per cent in December 2019 and 2.76 per cent in January 2019, according to data released by the ministry of commerce and industry. The earlier high was in April 2019 when the WPI inflation stood at 3.18 per cent.

During January this year, the rate of price rise for food articles stood at 11.51 per cent against 13.24 per cent a month earlier.

Inflation in vegetables stood at 52.72 per cent, while onion prices spurted a whopping 293 per cent, followed by potato at 87.84 per cent. In the manufactured food category, wholesale inflation was recorded at 0.34 per cent against a negative print of 0.25 per cent in December.