ISLAMABAD, Aug 25: The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) recorded a modest increase of 0.29pc during the week ended Aug 24, 2007 over the previous week, according to Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) data released here on Saturday.

The surge in SPI has resulted into increase in prices of essential items during the week under review over the previous week. Some of the food items including edible oil, pulses, wheat flour and a few vegetables have witnessed massive increase in their rates.

The group-wise analysis of the behaviour of prices of 53 essential items prevailing in the 17 towns of the country shows that the SPI witnessed an increase of 0.25pc and 0.26pc, respectively, for households in the two lower income brackets (up to Rs3,000 and Rs3,001-Rs5,000).

For the households in income brackets Rs5,001-Rs12,000, the increase in the SPI was 0.28pc, while for the households in the income group of over Rs12, 000, the inflation grew by 0.27pc over the previous week.

Comparing with the corresponding week last year, the SPI registered an increase of 7.21pc during the period under review.

With this increase in SPI, prices of 22 essential kitchen items including onions witnessed an upward trend during the week under review.

According to data, the price of onions increased by 7.53pc to Rs17.57 per kg and eggs by 4.56pc to Rs43.56 per dozen during the week under review.

The price of chicken live bird rose by 4.20pc to Rs94.95 per kg, potatoes by 3.47pc to Rs17.88 per kg red chillies by 2.48pc to Rs130.35 per kg, rice irri-6 by 2.24pc to Rs22.87 kg, vegetable ghee (2.5-litre tin) by 1.31pc to Rs272.06, salt by 1.26pc to Rs4.82 per kg, rice basmati broken rose by 0.96pc to Rs31.67 per kg during the week.The price of mustard oil increased by 0.84pc to Rs93.15 per kg, coarse latha by 0.74pc to Rs36.84 per metre, gur by 0.73pc to Rs35.97 per kg, wheat by 0.55pc to Rs12.70 per kg, wheat flour 0.54pc to Rs14.97 per kg, LPG (11-kg cylinder) rose by 0.47pc to Rs568.94.

The price of masoor pulse (washed) up by 0.35pc to Rs54.76 per kg, garlic by 0.29pc to Rs51.96 per kg, firewood by 0.17pc to Rs202.59 per 40-kg, curd by 0.17pc to Rs34.46 per kg, gram pulse (washed) 0.1pc to Rs40.73 per kg and vegetable ghee (loose) surged by 0.07pc to Rs87.63 per kg.