ISLAMABAD: Inflation measured through Sensitive Price Index (SPI) posted a hefty increase of 1.21 per cent for the week ended on Oct 7 driven by a sharp rise in the prices of essential food items, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) showed on Friday.

The preceding two weeks witnessed a decline after maintaining rising trend in the past 12 weeks. In September, the highest jump of 1.3pc in weekly inflation was recorded. For the lowest income group earning below Rs17,732 per month, the SPI increased by 0.88pc and for the group earning above Rs44,175, it rose by 1.31pc.

This was mainly due to an increase in prices of essential items including chicken 17.12pc, LPG 7.73pc, potatoes 5.89pc, garlic 3.70pc, petrol 3.20pc, tea (Lipton) 1.98pc, wheat flour bag 1.97pc, washing soap 1.94pc, gur 1.84pc, tomatoes 1.83pc, mustard oil 1.60pc and diesel 1.59pc.

The items whose prices decreased during the weel( included eggs 2.66pc, bananas 2.09pc, onions 1.62pc, pulse moong 1.23pc and chillies powdered 1.12pc, respectively. During the week, out of 51 items, prices of 22 items increased 08 items decreased and 21 items remained constant.