ISLAMABAD, March 8: Sensitive Price Indicator moved up by 0.08 per cent during the week ending March 6, 2003, as compared to previous week, according to the weekly price data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Saturday.

As a result, the SPI rose to 107.68 with 2000-01 as the base year, denoting an increase of 3.18 per cent over the previous year.

According to the FBS data based on prices of 51 essential items collected from 17 towns, the index in fact decreased for households in the three lower income brackets.

The upward price spiral affected only the affluent households with incomes exceeding Rs12,000 per month. For them, the SPI spurted by 0.29 per cent over the previous week. For households with monthly incomes up to Rs3,000, it fell by 0.07 per cent, for those in the income bracket Rs3,001-5,000 by 0.10 per cent and for those in the income bracket Rs5,001-12,000 by 0.09 per cent.

The main contributors to increase in SPI for the highest income households were hikes in prices of hydrocarbon fuels as well as mutton. Their prices, during the single week Feb 28-March 6, surged 7.20 per cent (diesel), by 3.55 per cent (petrol), by 3.11 per cent (kerosene) and 1.02 per cent (mutton).

Prices also swelled of six other items which are also consumed by lower income households. These were: Moong pulse washed (1.89%), beef (0.40%), bananas (0.34%), firewood (0.32%), milk fresh (0.27%) and vegetable ghee (loose) (0.07%). For the second consecutive week, the items which saw drop in prices outnumbered those the prices of which showed rising trend. These 16 items included:

Egg (farm) (6.84%), tomatoes (4.44%), chicken farm (3.37%), potatoes (2.13%), onions (2.04%), garlic (-1.53%), red chilies (powdered) (1.28%), gram pulse washed (0.64%), gur (0.31%), mash pulse washed (0.30%), wheat flour average quality (0.28%), sugar (0.20%), mustard oil (0.13%), masoor pulse washed (0.09%), rice irri-6 and L.P.G. (11 kg cylinder) (0.08%).

The prices of cement declined further by 1.04pc over the previous week and by 19.84pc over the corresponding period of previous year. The lowest price registered further decline. This time, cement bag fetched the lowest price of Rs175 and that too in Multan. Karachi continued to be the place where the cement price was the highest at Rs227 per bag.

The prices of chemical fertilizers showed a declining trend during the period under review, as compared to previous week. There was no change in prices of five categories of fertilizers, while those of five others reduced as follows:

Urea Sony (0.04%), Urea Sony (0.12%), Die Amen. Phosphate (0.17%), S.SP. Phosphate (GR) (0.19%) and S.SP. (GR) (0.23%). The daily wages of three categories of workers registered some increase over the previous week as follows: mason (0.62%), carpenter (0.66%) and plumber (0.72%). The wages of labourer and electrician remained unchanged.