June 26, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 10, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 25: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Monday took suo motu notice of increase in the prices of daily use items in the twin cities of Rawalpindi-Islamabad.

Concerned over unprecedented increase in the prices of kitchen items, Senior judge of the SC Mr Justice Javed Iqbal summoned the District Coordinating Officer (DCO) of Rawalpindi and Islamabad’s Chief Commissioner to appear before him in his chamber on June 29 and submit report in this regard.

A double digit food inflation, recorded in the two cities — 13.2 per cent in Islamabad and 12 per cent in Rawalpindi — is the highest even from the average national food inflation of 11.3 per cent in May 2007 over the corresponding month of last year.

The judge took the suo motu notice on a newspaper report stating that the residents of the twin cities have shown concerns over the increase in the prices of daily use items manifold and there was no check or control over them.

Though the provincial government has appointed more than 12 revenue officers and delegated them magisterial powers to control the price hike but they have failed to control the price hike.

According to a State Bank of Pakistan report, 22 out of 35 cities are in the category of high inflation, depicting that the poor people are the most affected of the increase in food prices.

Other cities, which also under the grip of high food inflation include Gujranwala, 12.8 per cent; Multan, 12.1 per cent; Khuzdar, 12.3 per cent; Mianwali, 13.7 per cent; Hyderabad, 12.1 per cent; Bahawalpur, 12.7 per cent; and Lahore 12.8 per cent.

According to the SBP report, this significant increase in food inflation is due to the high prices of tomatoes, kinoo, potato watermelon, etc.

On monthly basis, out of 124 items 49 items showed decline or no change, 50 items showed increase of upto 5 per cent, 7 items showed 5 to 10 per cent increase and only 4 items showed above 10 per cent increase out of which only tomato showed 120 per cent increase in May 2007 over last year.

Of the total 124 commodities of food group, 39 commodities including eggs, some fruits, cooking oil, different types of rice, chicken and some vegetables exhibited inflation in the range of 10 to 50 per cent in May 2007.

The combined weight of commodities with double digit inflation was about 41 per cent of the food group. Three commodities, watermelon (120 per cent), kinoo (132 per cent) and tomatoes (222 per cent), of the food group crossed 100 per cent inflation.

On the other hand, inflation of 16 commodities like potatoes, green chilies, sugar, ginger, onion, pulse moong and peas either declined or remained same during the month. The rest of the items having a weight of 39 per cent in the food group exhibited subdued or moderate inflation.

In food group the most important development was observed in the price of tomatoes that showed a steep increase of more than 200 per cent in May 2007. Among the selected food items, tomatoes were the most volatile item over the last two years.