The Commerce and Industry ministry said in a statement inflation was 5.63 percent in the year to December 20, up from 5.57 percent in data for a week earlier and 3.34 percent in the equivalent period a year earlier.
A Reuters poll of 12 banks and research houses on Thursday had estimated the annual rate would rise to 5.65 percent.
The rise in inflation was largely due to an increase in petrol and diesel prices of 3.0 to 5.0 percent by Indian state-run oil firms on December 15.
The index for the fuel, power, and light and lubricants segment in the wholesale price index basket rose 0.9 percent to 257.3 from 254.9 in the previous week.
Analysts said a rise in global oil prices was a cause for concern and they said they expected inflation to hover around 5.50 percent for some weeks.
India's central bank has forecast inflation at 4.0 to 4.5 percent in the fiscal year through March 2004.
But Indian federal bond yields eased after the inflation data was released on Friday.
The actively traded 8.07 percent 2017 bond was dealt at a yield of 5.5036 percent, off 5.5225 percent before the data and lower than the previous close of 5.5131.
Prabhu said inflation was likely to start declining from the second half of January as the effect of bumper crops, following India's best monsoon in a decade, kicked in.
Food, non-food and manufactured product prices showed a decline during the week under review. The index for food articles declined 0.7 percent to 180.0 from 181.2 a week earlier.