ISLAMABAD, Feb 4: Sensitive Price Index (SPI) rose by 0.30 per cent during the week ending Feb 3, as compared to the previous week, according to the weekly price data released by the Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) here on Saturday.

The data indicated that over all SPI recorded an increase during the week under review for all income groups due to increase in the prices of sugar, potatoes, gur, wheat, wheat flour, rice and pulses.

These were the commodities being in common use of the general public, which would put more pressure on the monthly budget of the low salaried class of people.

The group-wise analysis of the behaviour of prices of 53 essential items prevailing in 17 towns of Pakistan shows that SPI witnessed an increase by 0.65 per cent and 0.55 per cent for households in the two lower income brackets (up to Rs3,000 and Rs3,001-5,000).

For the households in income brackets of Rs5,001-12,000, the increase in SPI was in the range of 0.41 per cent. While for the households in the income group basket of over Rs12,000, the inflation registered a growth of 0.18 per cent over the previous week.

Comparing with the corresponding week last year, the SPI registered an increase of 6.92 per cent during the week under review.

According to the FBS data, prices of 19 items went up during the period under review as compared to the previous week.

These were: Sugar(8.54 per cent), potatoes (8.13 per cent), gur (4.19 per cent), bananas (3.81 per cent), moong pulse washed (3.59 per cent), mash pulse washed (2.78 per cent), gram pulse washed (2.27 per cent), LPG cylinder (1.95 per cent), salt powder (1.57 per cent), masoor pulse washed (1.19 per cent), firewood (0.85 per cent), mustard oil (0.54 per cent), wheat (0.42 percent), rice irri-6 (0.38 per cent), milk powder (0.21 per cent), red chillies powder (0.17 per cent), mutton (0.15 per cent), wheat flour (0.08 per cent) and veg. ghee loose (0.13 per cent).

The week under review also saw decrease in average prices of six essential items. These included: Eggs farm (11.71 per cent), chicken farm (4.54 per cent), tomatoes (2.31pc), garlic (1.45 per cent), onions (0.90 per cent) and veg. ghee tin (0.05 per cent).