Answer the question on the basis of the following information.
The following is the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) of a select list of items with the base year of 1993-94. In other words, all the item prices are made 100 in that year (1993-94). Price in all other years for an item are measured with respect to its price in the base year. For instance, the price of cement went up by 1% in 1994-95 as compared to 1993-94. Similarly, the price of power went up by 3% in 1996–97 as compared to 1993-94.
|
1993-94
|
1994-95
|
1995-96
|
1996-97
|
1997-98
|
1998-99
|
1999-2000
|
2000-01
|
2001-02
|
2002-03
|
All Items
|
100
|
102.0
|
102.5
|
104.00
|
103.00
|
105.00
|
106.00
|
108.00
|
107.00
|
106.00
|
Cement
|
100
|
101.0
|
100.5
|
103.00
|
102.50
|
103.50
|
103.10
|
103.80
|
103.70
|
104.00
|
Limestone
|
100
|
102.0
|
102.5
|
102.75
|
102.25
|
103.00
|
104.00
|
105.00
|
104.50
|
105.00
|
Power
|
100
|
101.5
|
102.5
|
103.00
|
103.50
|
104.00
|
106.00
|
107.00
|
107.50
|
108.00
|
Steel
|
100
|
101.5
|
101.0
|
103.50
|
104.00
|
104.25
|
105.00
|
105.50
|
106.00
|
105.50
|
Timber
|
100
|
100.5
|
101.5
|
102.00
|
102.50
|
102.00
|
103.00
|
103.50
|
104.00
|
104.50
|
Wages
|
100
|
101.5
|
103.0
|
103.50
|
104.00
|
104.25
|
104.00
|
104.75
|
104.90
|
105.30
|
Let us suppose that one bag of cement $(50$ kgs) consumes $100$ kgs of limestones and $10$ units of power. The only other cost item in producing cement is in the form of wages. During $1993-94,$ limestone, power and wages contribute, respectively, $20\%, 25\%,$ and $15\%$ to the cement price per bag. The average operating profit $(\%$ of price per cement bag) earned by a cement manufacturer during $2002-03$ is closest to
- $40 \%$
- $39.5\%$
- $38.5 \%$
- $37.5 \%$