New Delhi, Mar 2 (UNI) Amidst concerns to tame the rising prices, the annual rate of inflation came sharply down to 6.05 per cent for the week ended February 17 due to a fall in prices of fuel and food items.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram asked the industry to hold the price line saying that inflation could be moderated through fiscal steps like duty cuts announced in the Budget 2007-08, monetary steps undertaken by RBI and supply side augmentation.

''I urge you (industry) to cooperate with the government in fighting inflation...Supply side must be augmented and price line to the extent possible must be held,'' Mr Chidambaram said in a post-Budget interaction with the industry here yesterday.

The inflation rate, calculated on a point-to-point basis, stood at 6.63 per cent last week and 4.13 per cent during the corresponding week of the previous year.

The Wholesale Price Index (WPI) for all commodities for the week ended February 17 declined by 0.3 per cent from 209.2 for the previous week.

The index for the Primary Articles group declined by 0.4 per cent to 215.0 from 215.8 for the previous week.

The index for Food Articles group declined by 0.4 per cent to 215.9 from 216.8 for the previous week due to lower prices of fish-marine and gram (4 per cent each), fish-inland (3 per cent), fruits and vegetables and bajra (2 per cent each) and moong and jowar (1 per cent each).

However, the prices of poultry chicken (14 per cent), arhar (2 per cent) and barley, maze and wheat (1 per cent each) moved up.

The index for Non-Food articles group declined by 0.1 per cent to 196.7 from 196.9 for the previous week due to lower prices of mesta (3 per cent) and raw cotton, raw jute and copra (1 per cent each).

However, the prices of niger seed (3 per cent) and groungnut seed (1 per cent) moved up.

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