The weekly inflation SPI surged by 16.40 percent during the week ending on August 18 over the same period of last year, following continuous increase in the prices of essential commodities in Ramazan. The Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) data on SPI released on Saturday showed that continuous increase in prices of essential commodities during the last three weeks of Ramazan pushed the inflation up from 14.80 percent on August 4, 2011 to 16.40 percent on August 18.
It was patently evident from the trend that increase in the prices of essential commodities moved upwards in Ramazan despite efforts by the government, which consequently hit hard the middle- and low-income groups. Analysis of the data showed that inflation or price hike was recorded 20.27 percent for Rs 5001 to Rs 12000 income group with 21.75 percent for above Rs 12000 per month income. The prices hike or dearness for the low-income group bracketed in Rs 3000 monthly earning was 14.37 percent and 14.18 percent for those earning monthly between Rs 3001 and Rs 5000.
The price hike affected most the low-income group with SPI inflation showing an increase of 0.30 percent for them whereas combined SPI witnessed an increase of 0.27 percent during the week from August 11 to 18. The SPI computed on the samples of 53 essential items taken from 17 urban cities showed an increase in the prices of 19 commodities during the week and the prices of only 9 items declined.
Analysis of the data showed that price of sugar increased to Rs 75.53 kilogram during the week from Rs 73.41 per kg week ago, banana to Rs 68.36 per dozen from Rs 62.94 per dozen, potatoes to Rs 30.38 from Rs 29.47, onion to Rs 23.27 from Rs 2.24, match box each to Rs 1.06 from Rs 1.03, rice irri-6 kg to Rs 44.93 from Rs 44.23, gur kg to Rs 88.46 from Rs 87.38, rice basmati broken kg to Rs 59.02 from Rs 58.46, lawn metre to Rs 128.79 from Rs 127.76, chicken (farm) kg to Rs 164.19 from Rs 162.89, LPG(11 kg cylinder) each to Rs 1416.76 from Rs 1405.88; mustard oil kg to Rs 171.63 from Rs 170.46, shirting metre to Rs 104.01 from Rs 103.65, wheat average quality kg to Rs 25.36 from Rs 25.30; coarse latha metre to Rs 75.09 from Rs 74.94; beef kg to Rs 239.54 from Rs 239.09; mutton kg to Rs 458.64 from Rs 457.83; firewood 40 kg to Rs 401.87 from Rs 401.28; red chillies kg to Rs 252.11 from Rs 252.00.