ISLAMABAD, June 8: Prices of as many as 22 essential items, included in the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), shot up during the week ended June 7, 2002, as compared to the previous week, according to the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) data released here on Saturday.

The SPI, based on analysis of prices of 51 essential items collected in 17 cities of Pakistan, thus spiralled by 0.37 per cent during the period under report.

Hardest hit were the lowest income people (monthly incomes up to Rs3,000). For them the index soared by 0.69%, as compared to 0.53% for the strata with incomes between Rs3001 and Rs5000, to 0.34% with incomes up to Rs12,000 and to 0.27% for people with incomes exceeding Rs12,000.

This means that the price spiral resulting substantially from yet another hike in energy prices over the previous week has hit the lower two income strata the hardest. The prices of petrol, it will be recalled, were pegged up last week by 0.83% for petrol and 4.45% for diesel.