Milk price likely to witness whopping increase in Karachi

KARACHI: The inflation-burdened citizens of Karachi are expected to encounter more hardship as reports indicate a potential Rs 50 per liter increase in milk prices, ARY News reported on Friday.

The President of Dairy Farmers Karachi, Mubasher Qadeer Abbasi, indicated that an increase of Rs 50 per liter of milk is expected soon for the people of Karachi, citing the high cost of milk production, soaring cattle prices, and government negligence related to these matters.

Abbasi stressed the urgency for the Karachi Commissioner to promptly issue a notification regarding the new prices aligned with the milk production costs.

He further emphasized that if the authorities do not announce the increase in milk prices by May 10, stakeholders will take matters into their own hands and raise prices after consensus.

Earlier in the day, the weekly inflation evaluated by the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI), showed a decrease of one percent for the combined consumption groups during the week ended on May 02.

The SPI for the current week within the aforementioned group stands at 316.95 points, down from 320.14 points recorded in the previous week.

In comparison to the corresponding week of the previous year, the SPI for the combined consumption group in the current week saw a rise of 24.37 percent. The weekly SPI, calculated with the base year 2015-16 =100, encompasses 17 urban centers and 51 essential items across all expenditure groups.

For the lowest consumption group, up to Rs. 17,732, there was a decrease of 1.09 percent, with the SPI dropping to 306.26 points from last week’s 309.64 points.

Similarly, the SPI for consumption groups ranging from Rs. 17,732-22,888, Rs. 22,889-29,517, Rs. 29,518-44,175, and above Rs. 44,175, decreased by 1.12 percent, 1.02 percent, 1.04 percent, and 0.95 percent respectively.

Throughout the week, out of the 51 items, prices of 15 items (29.42 percent) increased, 18 items (35.29 percent) decreased, and 18 items (35.29 percent) remained stable.

The items, which recorded a decrease in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included tomatoes (22.05 percent), chicken (8.03 percent), onions (7.71 percent), wheat flour (6.88 percent), bananas (5.25 percent), diesel (2.89 percent), chilies powder (2.59 percent), LPG (2.36 percent), petrol (1.84 percent), pulse masoor (1.25 percent) and pulse moong (0.90 percent).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on a week-on-week basis included potatoes (6.06 percent), salt powder (0.91 percent), garlic (0.85 percent), powder milk (0.70 percent), mutton (0.65 percent), eggs (0.53 percent), cigarettes (0.51 percent), curd (0.46 percent) and beef (0.45 percent).

On Year-on-Year basis, the commodities that witnessed decrease included bananas (37.76 percent), wheat flour (23.15 percent), cooking oil 5 litre (20.45 percent), vegetable ghee 2.5 kg (17.10 percent), vegetable ghee 1 kg (16.75 percent), mustard oil (12.74 percent), eggs (10.46 percent), LPG (8.52 percent), chicken (3.99 percent) and diesel (2.04 percent).

The commodities which recorded an increase in their average prices on year-on-year basis included gas charges for Q1 ( 570.00 percent), onions (145.15 percent), tomatoes (79.43 percent), garlic (72.46 percent), chilies powder (71.96 percent), salt powder (33.07 percent), energy saver (29.83 percent), shirting (29.71 percent), gents sandal (25.01 percent), pulse mash (24.72 percent), gur (24.49 percent) and beef (23.96 percent).