ISLAMABAD: Weekly inflation for the combined group in the period ended on March 25 slightly increased by 0.61 per cent on the back of uptick in prices of essential food items, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday showed.

The week-on-week increase in inflation was noticed after a drop for the past second consecutive week. Since January, an upward movement in the prices of essential kitchen items was noted despite the government’s claims that rates of consumer items were declining.

The PBS calculates the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) based on the prices of 51 essential items from 50 markets across 17 cities of the country.

For the lowest income group earning below Rs17,732 per month, the SPI increased by 0.52pc. For the group earning above Rs44,175, SPI recorded an increase of 0.61pc.

This was mainly due to an increase in prices of food items including tomatoes 20.04pc, chicken 8.81pc, bread 1.64pc, bananas 1.55pc and wheat flour bag 1.01pc.

The items whose prices decreased during the week included garlic, which recorded a decline of 8.12pc, onions 2.27pc, potatoes 1.98pc, pulse moong (0.54pc), rice basmati broken (0.28pc) and gur 0.20pc.

Among non-food items, the price of LPG declined 0.66pc.

Published in Dawn, March 27th, 2021