The government on Thursday announced discontinuing releasing weekly primary and food inflation data based on the wholesale price index.

"Weekly WPI is discontinued henceforth," the ministry of Commerce and Industry, which releases the inflation data, said. The government, however, will continue releasing the monthly headline or overall inflation data, which also contains the break-up for all segments including food, non-food, fuel and manufactured items.

The headline inflation figures for January are scheduled to be released on February 14. Besides, from this month the government will also come out with a retail inflation data based on the all-India Consumer Price Index. The first nationwide CPI numbers, for the month of January, will come out on February 21.

The government has last month decided to do away with the practice of releasing the weekly primary and food inflation data as the figures were not portraying the "holistic" picture of the price situation.

The decision was taken by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Senior officials had said that the reason for doing away with the weekly figures was because there used to be lot of variation in the weekly primary and food inflation numbers and the monthly data.

Besides, according to government sources, the weekly data were not giving any "clear and holistic" picture of the inflation situation.