The government today came out with a new index on inflation, which showed that the rate of price rise declined by 1.3 percentage points, to a 7-month low of 8.5 per cent in August, from the July level of 9.8 per cent. But going by the old inflation series, the rate of price rise dipped from 10 per cent in July, to 9.5 per cent in August. According to the new index, which seeks to capture the price situation in a better way, inflation declined on account of falling prices of food items like vegetables, cereals and pulses. Prices of potatoes declined 47 per cent, and onions by 6.7 per cent in August, on an annual basis. Sugar became cheaper by 0.63 per cent.But prices of manufactured products like beverages, tobacco and cotton textiles saw an average price rise of 4.78 per cent. On a monthly basis, prices of arhar declined by 4 per cent and fruits, and vegetables by 7 per cent. The new inflation series, with 2004-05 as the base year, has 241 more items than the old series with 1993-94 as the base year, which only reflected the price rise in 435 articles. Consumer items widely used by the middle-class, like ice -cream, mineral water, microwave ovens, washing machines, and gold and silver are reflected in the new WPI inflation series. There is a substantial increase in the number of manufactured products included in the new index. The weight of manufactured products has also gone up to 64.9 per cent, compared to 63.7 per cent, while that of the primary articles group, including food, has come down to 20.1 per cent in the new index, from 22.02 per cent in the old index.