Boiler chicken prices increased

LAHORE: Lahore retailers have taken advantage of the official rate and are selling broiler meat above Rs. 550, whereas broiler meat is official rate for 446 Rs.

Due to arbitrary price hikes and inflation. Moreover, consumers are further paying extra on the label of premium cleaned meat.

Butchers openly violated the orders of the government price control, and consumers complaint the lack of price control by the relevant authorities and demand intervention in market rates.

Lahore residents are complaining about high prices. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics has released the Sensitive Price Indicator (SPI) data for the current week, which showed that inflation dropped significantly due to price declines in petroleum products, LPG, and other essential items.

As per the latest PBS data released, the SPI fell by 0.98 percent from the previous week due to reduced prices of petroleum products like petrol and diesel by around 17-19 percent and LPG by 12.6 percent.

Data shows the price of chicken dropped by nearly 2 percent, while prices of pulses like moong and mash, along with garlic and sugar, saw a marginal decline.

The price of bananas also went down by nearly 1.4 percent. Overall prices for 51 essential items tracked fell, with 23 items showing a hike, 25 items dropping and 3 showing stable prices. Food and energy prices contribute about half to the overall SPI, and in the current week energy prices fell by significant margins.

Among the food items that got cheaper were chicken (1.97%), bananas (1.44%), pulse moong (1.15%), pulse mash (1.14%), garlic (1.07%), pulse gram (0.81%), mustard oil (0.24%) and sugar (0.21%).

While some items like onions (10.72%), tomatoes (125.40%) and potatoes (10.06%) continued to see upward movement in prices. Wheat flour and fresh milk also increased by 5.08% and 1.35%, respectively.

Eggs, a staple food for many households, rose by 8.32%.