Weekly inflation for the Combined Group in the period ended on Apr 15, 2021 increased by 0.54 per cent, while it jumped by 18.89 per cent compared to the corresponding period from last year, on the back of uptick in prices of essential food items, data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) on Friday showed. Since January, an upward movement in the prices of essential kitchen items was noted despite the government’s claims that rates of consumer items were declining. The PBS calculates the Sensitive Price Index (SPI) based on the prices of 51 essential items from 50 markets across 17 cities of the country. According to data released by the the Combined Index was at 148.8 compared to 148 on Apr 08, 2021 while the index was recorded at 125.16 a year ago, on Apr 16, 2020 Out of the 51 monitored items, the average price of 16 items increased, 11 items decreased whereas 24 items registered no change during the week. The weekly SPI percentage change by income groups showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 0.51% and 0.56%. For the lowest Income Group, the SPI increased by 0.55% while for the highest income group SPI increased by 0.56%. This was mainly due to an increase in prices of food items including tomatoes, chicken, bread, bananas and wheat flour bag. On a yearly basis, analysis of SPI change across different income segments showed that SPI increased across all quantiles ranging between 17.57% and 22.64%.