ISLAMABAD, May 26: The weekly inflation surged significantly for the middle and lower middle classes due to the massive hike in electricity rates and increase in the rates of fresh milk and wheat flour.

The Sensitive Price Index (SPI) based weekly inflation increased by 2.66 per cent for the week income group earning between Rs8,001 and Rs12,000 per month during the week ending on May 24, 2012.

Data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) here on Saturday showed that the weekly inflation increased by 2.06 per cent during the said week for the middle class earning from Rs12,001 to Rs18,000 per month. The PBS data said that SPI inflation for the combined income group increased by 1.86 per cent.

The SPI increase for the low income group earning up to Rs8,000 per month was 0.75 per cent, for the income group earning between Rs18,001 and Rs35,000 per month the SPI increased by 1.63 per cent, while for the high end income group earning more than Rs35,000 the SPI based inflation reached 1.70 per cent in the said week.

Experts have attributed the increase mainly on raised electricity rates that led to the spiral of inflation.

“Power rates were increased by around 16 per cent on May 16 and the impact is visible in the said week which is from May 17 to May 24,” said an economist of the planning commission, adding, “the wheat flour prices and fresh milk rates also increased in this period. As a result the middle class has been hit by high inflation.” The economist said that the middle class has been more severely hit because this segment of the society spends a major part of earning on food.

“These three items have a significant weight in the food basket,” the economist added.

Electricity has weight 9.36 in the SPI basket, while the weight of wheat flour and fresh milk is 17.45 per cent and 17.06 per cent respectively for the low income group.

15 items registered increase in price during the said week including electric, bananas, potatoes, cooking oil tin packed, vegetable ghee, curd, wheat flour, fresh milk, basmati rice, washing soap, wheat, tea prepared, firewood, gur and washed moong pulse.

12 items that witnessed decline in prices are live farm chicken, farm chicken eggs, Tomatoes, washed mash pulse, LPG, washed gram pulse, onions, garlic, loose red chilies powder, mustard oil, loose vegetable ghee and sugar.

However, the prices of 26 items remained unchanged during the week which are irri-6/9 rice, plain bread, beef, mutton, milk powder, washed masoor pulse, loose salt powdered, tea, cooked beef plate, cooked dal plate, cigarettes, long cloth (coarse latha), shirting, lawn cloth, georgette cloth, gents sandal, gents spring chappal, ladies sandal, gas charges, kerosene oil, energy savor bulb, match box, petrol, diesel, local telephone charges and bath soap.

The weekly SPI is calculated covering 53 essential items for all income groups from 17 urban centers across the country.