The aam admi’s staple food has for long been dal-roti. With the steep runaway prices of dal in the market these days and with tur dal reaching above Rs 200 per kg in some parts of India, this staple source of protein for the poor people is being snatched away from their diet. Thankfully prices of wheat and other grain have not escalated sharply to make the roti out of reach of the poor. There seems to be a pattern here in these sporadic rise in prices of food items.
Apart from dal-roti, onions is another item that used to commonly figure on the plate of the common man. Even for onions we have seen random variations reaching peak highs of Rs 80 per kg which are settling down to being an annual ritual. The generally proffered argument by our politicians and administrators that weather conditions are responsible for these sudden price surges is unacceptable since it seems to be the most convenient thing to blame.
Since for pulses the failure of the harvest because of a bad monsoon two years in a row is stated to be the reason for low local production of the commodity while for onions, at least for this year, it was the unseasonal rains at the time of harvest.
In pulses there is a deeper structural problem which no government has addressed in the last decade or so and that is the fact that farmers are moving away from cultivation of pulses because of non-remunerative prices and also no support price mechanism for the commodity. But the common reason for the sharp spurt in prices seems to be the hoarding of the commodity by traders.
Even for onions earlier and for pulses now the crackdown on hoarding has resulted in bringing substantial quantity of dal into the market. This was seen also with sugar in the last couple of years where hoarders were found to be responsible for the sharp initial spurt of prices. In all three items – sugar, onions and pulses – Maharasthra seems to be at the forefront of hoarding.
Why our governments cannot monitor stock levels of important commodities on a regular basis instead of acting only when prices hit the roof is something that is not understandable? In the case of the named commodities one can see that if the government had acted earlier than there would been relief for consumers from the exorbitant prices. Again the government has to realise that by just doing a face-saving exercise of organizing sales of the commodity in question through the government Sahakari Bhandars or whatever to a limited section of the population in specific does not alleviate the problem for the people at large. Thus one would suggest that the government should try to strive to do the good to the maximum number of people.
