ISLAMABAD, Nov 28: Inflation measured through the sensitive price index (SPI) surged by 29.41 per cent during the week ended on Nov 27 over the corresponding week of last year, the Statistics Division said on Friday.

The inflation figures are hovering around 30 per cent for the past few weeks, but these have scaled down from the highest peak of 34 per cent, recorded in October last on the back of rising fuel and food prices.

The downward trend in inflation showed some letup in the prices of vegetables, LPG and flour in the past few weeks.

Inflation recorded an increase of 0.32 per cent over the previous week.

However, SPI data showed that the worst hit were households with Rs3, 000 monthly income.

The SPI witnessed an increase of 29.39 per cent and 29.85 per cent for households in income brackets of up to Rs3,000 and Rs3,001 to Rs5,000, respectively.

For households in the income brackets of Rs5,001 to 12,000, the increase was in the range of 30.31 per cent and for households in the income basket of over Rs12,000 inflation registered a growth of 28.92 per cent over the same week last year.

Prices of tomatoes rose by 47.38 per cent to Rs52.63 per kg from Rs35.71, egg by 12.38 per cent to Rs73.98 per dozen from Rs65.83, onions by 7.38 per cent to Rs26.87 per kg from Rs25.02 and mash (washed) 0.88 per cent to Rs75.45 per kg from Rs27.53 during the week under review.

Potato prices went up by 0.62 per cent to Rs27.70 per kg from Rs27.53, electric bulb by 0.43 per cent to Rs13.97 per kg from Rs13.91, firewood 0.42 per cent to Rs266.18 per 40 kg against Rs265.06 and bread (plane mid size) by 0.38 per cent to Rs24.06 against Rs23.97; mutton by 0.24pc to Rs257.13 per kg from Rs256.51 and beef by 0.03pc to Rs142.24 per kg from Rs142.20.