The prices of 25 commodities, including vegetables, pulses, poultry and cooked items, registered an average decrease of 7 percent, those of 23 items registered an increase of 5 percent in May as compared to April 2011.
Of 52 monitored commodities, the prices of four commodities remained unchanged, says FAFEN's Retail Price Monitor for the month of May 2011 released here on Wednesday.
FAFEN Retail Price Monitors collected the price of these commodities on 10th May, 2011 from 100 towns of 79 districts across Pakistan.
Of the commodities that registered decrease in prices, the highest decrease was observed in the price of tomato--of 39 percent. This decrease was very much attributable to the start of its harvest season in Punjab and other parts of the country. S
Similarly, food items like onion and garlic, registered a price decrease of 19 percent in their prices. The prices of poultry items like chicken broiler (live), chicken broiler (meat) dropped by 13 percent and 11 percent respectively. Seasonal effect was observed in the prices of eggs that registered a decrease of 11 percent. Given the harvest season of wheat, which is approaching its end, the prices of wheat grain, wheat flour and chapati (tanoor) registered a decrease of 7 percent, 5 percent and 3 percent, respectively.
Prices of pulses decreased like masoor pulse (5 percent), mash pulse (4 percent), gram pulse (3 percent), gram black (2 percent), chickpeas (2 percent) and mung pulse (1 percent). The prices of cooked dal plate and cooked vegetable plate decreased by 4 percent and 3 percent respectively while prices also decreased of items like peanuts (3 percent), disprin (3 percent), sugar (2 percent), rice basmati 386 (2 percent) and beef (1 percent).
Commodities registering prices increase were apple dark (16 percent highest), potato (13 percent), apple golden (12 percent), blood test (11 percent) and banana (11 percent).
Fruits occupied three out of the top five positions among the commodities that registered the highest price increase in May. The prices of urine test and blood sugar test registered increase of 9 percent and 1 percent in May as compared to April 2011.
Prices increased of firewood (6 percent), desi shakar (4 percent), red beans (4 percent), yogurt (4 percent), kerosene oil (3 percent), LPG (2 percent), gur (2 percent), white beans (2 percent) and mutton (2 percent).
The price of Panadol, prepared cup of tea and mustard oil each registered 2 percent increase while rice basmati broken, milk fresh, kinnow and red chili powder experienced 1 percent price increase.
FAFEN compared the data collected by its Governance Monitors with the Sensitive Price Index of the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS), which showed differences in the prices of many items collected from the same cities. In some items, the prices listed by the FBS were higher than those collected by FAFEN, and in some instances they were lower.