Inflation has broken the backbone of the lower middle class/ Onions prices skyrocketing

There is chaos amongst the people of the country. The prices of vegetables particularly the onions and tamatoes have gone up tremendously having crossed the Rs 60 per kilo mark in the Mandies giving enough freedom to vegetable venders selling them at Rs 80 and even more thus putting extra burden to the pockets of consumers.

Since the BJP led NDA government assumed power at the centre despite having made tall claims of bringing the inflation under control the prices of petrol, vegetables and other essental commodities including pulses have been skyrocketting compounded with multiple rise in the metro fares of the capital beyond the reach of lower middle class and those living at the lowest ebb of the society.

You go in the market to purchase anything, any commodity you’ll find everthing with a high price tag. The agencies dealing with price assesment play with the sentiments of the people by always supplying wrong figures in order to befool them as 90% of the citizens really don’t understand the manipulations of such price index parametres.

While on the one hand there have been tall claims of the economy having been tremendously strengthened but had it been able to result in downfall of the prices of essential commodities compounded with employment generation on the ground is a moot question being asked by everyone, everywhere. They are primarily the 70% of the rural people, those hailing from JJ clusters, employees of the private sector and people living at the grass roots who suffer while the rich, affluent, those above middle class hardly suffer as their purchasing power is hardly affected.

Even the government servants of the country have now to an extent joined the elite class club of the country as their salary structure has also gone up considerably and after every point rise in the inflation or price index their salary structure also gets enhanced with enhanced dearness allowance from retrospective affect.

Today majority of the newspapers of the country are carrying the front page news highlighting this heavy price hike of onions and tomatoes making the life of the people literally hell. As per the reports the retail price of onions, one of the main items’ of the household women and her kitchen has touched Rs. 63 for every kilogram in Delhi till Tuesday due to tight supplies and lower arrivals in the wholesale market.

Sounds shocking as the prices of onion in the month of August, September were as low as Rs 26/27 per kg in the retail market and Azadpur Sabzi Mandi. Not only in Delhi but in other parts of the country as well the retail prices of onion have crossed Rs 56 per Kilogram thus amounting to the three folds’ rise.

If such is the critical situation in the domestic market what’s the point of exporting onions to outside countries. While there is already a shortage of onions in the Indian markets leading to the increasing price rise, the government had exported 80,00,000 tons of onion to countries abroad in the month of August September.

Those at the helm of affairs in the government should instead of making false claims of decreasing prices rise and befooling the people with rhetorics on various fronts to extract political capital in elections, should rather concentrate on this front to bring skyrocketting price rise under control by concentrating their efforts on controlling the black marketeers on wide scale compounded with improvising the production of vegetables and other crops on massive scale.

The food and vegetable sector of the country is in doldrums with people leaving farming on mass scale. The government should also make cold storage facilities available in myriad quantity so that the onions, tomatoes etc can be stored in sufficient quantity on wider scale particularly when they are produced in massive quantity due to good weather and monsoon situations.

If cold storage facility in abundance is made available, a large quantity of vegetable and other produce like food grain usually going waste when grown in excess can be stored and sold at cheaper prices at the time of shortages to avoid inflationary pressure on the common men. Onion is considered to be a very significant ingredient of the kitchen and onion price rise had also lead to Congress losing power to BJP being the main election issue in the national election earlier. Similarly if the inflated prices of onions and tomates are not controlled forthwith would definitely put an adverse impact on the chances of BJP in Gujarat elections.

SUNIL NEGI