[An edited, shorter version of this article by me has appeared in Sakaal Times.]
As inflation hit a 42-month high on Friday, consumers’ anxiety also hit a new high, even as big retail stores are exploiting the opportunity by offering special discounts that purportedly negate the price rise.
At Future Group’s Big Bazaar in the Great India Place in Noida, one of the biggest retail stores in Delhi-NCR, floor manager Mukesh Negi explained how they were offering 20% discount on all food items provided customers also bought non-food items worth the same or greater amount. “This is a part of our campaign to help consumers fight unprecedented inflation,” he said.
He said that the greatest rise has been in prices of edible oils and rice, two most essential commodities. From Rs. 60 a litre three months ago, edible oils at Big bazaar are now retailing for upto Rs. 78 a litre.
Amongst pulses rice has been the worst hit. In some types of rice, said Negi, the price rise in the last three months has been 20% - and since Diwali last year, 90%. Sales have however not been affected, he said, as “people are not going to stop eating.”
“It is definitely beginning to pinch,” said Madhu Arvind Srivastava, a housewife carefully buying groceries at the retail chain. “When I bought rice stocks three months ago, regular Basmati was at 32 rs a kg. Now it is 38,” she said.
However, kkirana store owners say loosely sold groceries are begiing to stabilize – despite the Wholesale Price Index’s unrelenting upward trend. Two kilometers away from Big Bazaar, a small provision store owner, Pawan Jaiswal, said that mustard oil prices had come down from Rs. 78 a litre two months ago to Rs 68. Sugar prices had dropped from Rs. 18 to 17 a kgand rice from Rs 18 to 14. “I’ll go to the wholesale market again on Sunday and see if prices are increasing again,” he said.
“Prices dropping at kirana stores could be because of various reasons such as adulteration or PDS supplies being diverted into the market,” said consumer activist Bijon Mishra. He added that the overall inflation scenario is only the beginning and due to supply side reduction prices could go up further. “But the rise is not hurting the middle class that badly thanks to growing incomes, but savings are getting affected,” he said.
Another consumer activist, Shriram Khanna, said that the poor must be protected through PDS subsidies which should be made more effective. “Price rise is inevitable if the economy has to grow,” he said.
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