Of Price Rise and an Incompetent Government

On reading this topic I was reminded of a very funny scene in 3 Idiots: "Bhindi 12 rupaye/kilo Gobi 10 ki" etc. However it is no laughing matter that in the last 21 months food inflation has been on the rise only and is showing no signs of cooling down.

 

Flawed government policies and rampant corruption are to blame for this. How do you explain that there are food surpluses in some parts of the country which are neither exported nor consumed by the local people and thus results in spoiling of the food grain? The government is not even trying to solve the supply side problems and is trying to curb the demand through the RBI by hiking the repo and reverse repo rates. RBI has hiked these rates 13 times in the last 21 months in a bid to increase EMIs on loans and suppress people's demand. How can the government expect that demand for foodgrains, vegetables, poultry and milk will reduce? It will only keep rising. In a country with a population of over 1.15 billion people and rising every minute how can you even expect that demand will slow down??Compounding the problems are the rising costs of fuel (read petrol). Petrol has been hiked by nearly 20 rupees in the last year and a half. Now another price rise of Rs 1.82/litre is on the cards. India is among the countries where petrol is most expensive ( Petrol is taxed heavily in India to meet the costs of different welfare programs). Does the government not realise that food inflation and fuel costs are linked??? 

Along with this we have some moronic characters in the cabinet who make foolish statements blaming the people for food inflation. A few days ago a minister in the UPA government commented that since the purchasing power has increased, people purchase more so that is why there is food inflation. Does this fool not realise that because of food inflation purchasing power is getting decreased as well? Is it supposed to mean that in this country the rich should get richer and the poor should get poorer? 

I am not going to go into the fact that Indian politicians have their ill earned wealth stashed in Swiss banks and that it should be brought back because everybody knows about it. But it is indeed time that the government realise the fact that hiking of RBI rates will not reduce inflation. The krishi yojnas should reach the farmer also not just be a name on the paper popularizing a certain GANDHI or a NEHRU. It is more or less confirmed that in 2014 UPA will not be returning to power considering the amount of controversies and scams the ministers have been involved in. But then is there anything better???