SPI up by 7.69 percent than last year

The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) year-on-year of 53 daily use items for week ending on December 29, 2005 has shown 7.69 percent increase as compared to the corresponding week of last year.
However, the weekly data of SPI exhibited that this week it declined to 7.69 percent from 8.04 percent of last week. The trend of SPI shows that downward trend had started from week ending on November 2, 2005 when it was recorded 9.21 percent. During week ending on November 24, it came down to 6.85 percent but after that it again started climbing. However, this week it declined to 7.69 percent.
The significant feature of the weekly bulletin of Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) was that year-on-year the rise in the prices of some necessities and kitchen items was exorbitant. These items were onions, diesel, eggs, petrol, kerosene oil, sugar, fresh milk, firewood, gur, and all kind of pulses, which hit the low income group.
The bulletin on SPI, based on price data of about 53 items from 17 centres, showed that 14 items registered increase, and 10 items showed decline, while prices of 29 items remained unchanged.
However, detailed analysis showed that Y-on-Y basis 10 items were dearer by double digits. These included gur 49 percent, sugar 36 pc, moong pulse 36 pc, onions 33 pc, garlic 32 pc, firewood 26 pc, sugar 26 pc, mash pulse 21 pc, tea prepared 13 pc, beef 12 pc, and curd increased by 10 percent.
However, compared to previous week, in a span of one week the prices of tomatoes increased by 15.34 percent, garlic 3.16 percent, onions 1.47 percent, sugar 1.16 percent, and LPG increased by 1.09 percent over previous week.
The FBS figures further suggested that though prices of 29 items posted no change during the week, compared to the corresponding week of last year seven items were costly. For example, diesel is dearer by 43 percent, petrol 42 pc, kerosene 27 pc, match box 22 pc, ladies'' sandal (Bata) 20 pc, fresh milk 12 pc, and salt rose by 10 percent.
The bulletin indicated that though the prices of six items decreased, compared to the prices of corresponding week of last year, eggs are dearer by 14 percent and bananas by 10 percent.