The Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) inflation year-on-year of 53 daily use items for the week ending on June 22, 2006 has shown 9.19 percent increase as compared to the corresponding week of last fiscal year.
During this week, the price hike in these items increased by 0.15 percent as compared to previous week ended on June 15, when the SPI was at 8.85 percent.
The significant feature of the weekly bulletin of Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) released here on Saturday was that year-on-year the rise in the prices of some necessities and kitchen items was exorbitant.
These items were sugar, tomatoes, potatoes, diesel, petrol, kerosene oil, fire wood, gur, LPG, and all kinds of pulses, which hit the low-income group. The bulletin on SPI, based on data collected for about 53 items from 17 centres, showed that 11 items registered increase whereas 12 items showed decline while prices of 30 items remained unchanged.
However, further analysis of the data shows that year-on-year basis six items are dearer by double digits. These include liquefied petroleum gas (11 kg cylinder) by 70 percent, moong pulse 49 percent, tomatoes 47 percent, salt (powdered) 18 percent, chicken farm 14 percent and beef price increased by 13 percent over corresponding week of last fiscal year.
Among these items, in a short span of one week, the prices of tomatoes increased by 13.64 percent, chicken farm 5.68 percent, LPG 2.68 percent, egg farm 2.42 percent and onions increased by 1.59 percent over last week.
The FBS figures further showed that though the prices of 30 items posted no change during the week, yet compared to the corresponding week of last year, several items are costlier. For example, diesel is dearer by 33 percent, petrol 27 percent, kerosene and firewood each by 25 percent, tea (prepared) 12 percent and cooked dal (plate) by 11 percent.
The bulletin further indicates that though the prices of 12 items decreased, yet compared to the prices of corresponding week of last year, items which showed increase in their prices were mash pulse, which is dearer by 70 percent, gur 32 percent, sugar 31 percent, gram pulse 28 percent, potatoes 18 percent and mutton increased by 13 percent.