ISLAMABAD, Oct 19: Sensitive Price Indicator for the week ending October 17 dropped by 0.15 per cent as compared to previous week, according to the weekly price data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics here on Saturday.

Consequently, the price index moved down to 108.15 from 108.31 of previous week. When compared with the corresponding week of previous year, the SPI registered an increase of 4.61 per cent during the week under review.

Viewed from the point of view of impact on various income groups, the SPI fell 0.26per cent for the middle income households in income brackets between Rs3001 and Rs12000.

The decline in respect of lowest income households (up to Rs3000 per month) was 0.18 per cent compared to previous week. For the households with monthly incomes above Rs12,000, the SPI fell by 0.01 per cent.

The let-up in the otherwise relentless spiral of cost of living was attributable mainly to seasonal factors including ample supplies of certain vegetables.

Thus the average prices based on data collected by the FBS staff from 17 towns of Pakistan declined in respect of 12 out of 51 essential items included in SPI basket as compared to previous week. These were: Tomatoes (29.33pc), onions (-4.82pc), lawn (-1.79pc), voile printed (-1.62pc), garlic (-1.55pc), farm chicken (1.25pc), red chillies powdered (1.08pc), bananas (-1.07pc), egg farm (-0.87pc), gur (-0.54pc), masoor pulse washed (-0.36pc) and mash pulse washed (-0.03pc).

The decline in SPI would have been greater had the rates of petroleum fuels not been raised again during the week under review. According to FBS data, the average price of diesel soared by 6.14pc, petrol by 3.30pc and kerosene by 2.85pc over the previous week.

Besides, the week also saw hike in prices of 11 more items as follows: Potatoes (3.44pc), tea (prepared) (1.38pc), vegetable ghee tin (1.14pc), cooking oil tin (0.71pc), firewood (0.49pc), wheat (0.35pc), vegetable ghee loose (0.24pc), mustard oil (0.20pc), gram pulse washed (0.18pc), wheat flour average quality (0.10pc) and beef (0.02pc).

According to the FBS, the average price of cement declined by 0.27pc compared to previous week. But town-wise analysis shows that the price of cement reached all time high at Rs242 per bag in a number of places including Rawalpindi-Islamabad.