The inflation measured through SPI was up by 26.79 percent in week ending on June 26 against same period of last year due to surging prices of vegetable, flour and milk. The SPI data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics on Friday showed that prices of 16 essential commodities, including vegetables, wheat flour, eggs, milk, and pulses had increased during the week.
The price of one kg tomatoes increased from Rs 13.86 to Rs 15.84, potatoes Rs 19.42 to Rs 20.37, dozen eggs hen Rs 48.75 to Rs 50.67, LPG 11 kg cylinder Rs 687 to Rs 708.82, litre of kerosene increased from Rs 55.02 to Rs 55.57. Similarly, the prices per kg gram pulse washed increased from Rs 58.72 to Rs 59.15, wheat flour average quality Rs 22.52 to Rs 22.67, gur Rs 31.7 to Rs 31.93, firewood 40 kg Rs 238 to Rs 239.17 and kg masoor pulse washed Rs 111.88 to Rs 112.10. The prices of fresh milk and garlic also increased during the week.
With the increase in prices of essential commodities, the dearness for the low income group of Rs 3000 was recorded 29.74 percent more compared to last year. The increase was recorded 28.91 percent for families falling between Rs 3001 and Rs 5000 income group, 26.72 percent for families of Rs 5001 to Rs 12000, and 23.36 percent for families having monthly income of Rs 12000 and above. This led to an increase of 0.13 percent inflation during the week.
The trend of weekly SPI during last 10 weeks as compared to the previous as well as corresponding week of last year showed a continuing increase, escalating the difference from 23.71 percent on April 24 to 26.03 percent on June 26. The SPI bulletin, based on data of 53 items collected from 17 urban centres, showed increase in prices of 21 essential commodities, decline in 10, and prices of 20 commodities remained stable but dearer compared to last year.
Further analysis of the data showed that prices of 11 commodities declined during the week that included red chillies, onion, rice irri, chicken farm, rice basmati sugar, bananas, vegetable ghee loose and mustard oil. According to the FBS, the prices of 26 essential commodities remained stable during the week but prices of majority of them were up in double digits when compared to same period of last year.