ISLAMABAD: Weekly inflation for the combined group in the period ended on April 15 slightly increased by 0.54 per cent on the back of an uptick in prices of essential food items, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Friday.

The week-on-week incre­ase in inflation was noticed for a 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 0.55pc and for the group earning above Rs44,175, it recorded an uptick of 0.56pc.

This was mainly due to an increase in prices of food items including bananas 15.49pc, tomatoes 15.02pc, potatoes 7.42pc and wheat flour bag 2.71pc.

The items whose prices decreased during the week included garlic 3.98pc, pulse gram 2.58pc, pulse moong 2.19pc, pulse masoor 1.72pc, pulse maash 1.60pc, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) 1.20pc, gur 0.86pc, eggs 0.76pc, sugar 0.74pc, rice Irri-6 0.72pc and onions 0.53pc.

Among non-food items, the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas declined 1.20pc.

Published in Dawn, April 17th, 2021