India's annual wholesale price-based inflation surged to 13.11 per cent in February from 12.96 per cent which was recorded in the previous month and this was due to a sharp jump in the prices of crude petroleum and natural gas, the government data showed on Monday.

The annual rate of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) based inflation stood at 4.83 per cent in February 2021.

"The high rate of inflation in February 2022 is primarily due to rise in prices of mineral oils, basic metals, chemicals and chemical products, crude petroleum & natural gas, food articles and non-food articles etc. as compared to the corresponding month of the previous year," the Ministry of Commerce & Industry said in a statement.

The WPI based inflation accelerated in February after two months of a declining trend. The month-over-month change in WPI index for the month of February 2022 stood at 1.4 per cent as compared to January 2022.

Prices of crude petroleum and natural gas surged by 14.25 per cent, non-food articles by 3.28 per cent and minerals by 3.17 per cent in February 2022 as compared to the previous month.

The annual inflation in crude petroleum surged to 55.17 per cent in February, against 39.41 per cent in the previous month. This has surged due to a sharp jump in the crude oil prices in the international markets.

However, the prices of food articles declined by 0.87 per cent in February 2022 as compared to January 2022.

WPI food index, which has 24.38 per cent weight in the WPI, consists of 'food articles' from primary articles group and 'food product' from manufactured products group. The rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index decreased from 9.55 per cent in January 2022 to 8.47 per cent in February 2022.