Sunday Bazaar And Inflation
Posted : October 16, 2007 at 11:47 am [IST]
I don’t know if we are lucky to have the Sunday Bazaar so near to our residence rather across the road. I get further confused when I find the vendors adopting the psychological torture to tell the price of one paw (250 gm) rather a kilo that we understand better. Last Sunday Yamuna was tired because of her too many engagements of Navratra functions at many households of her acquaintances. I was to do the weekly marketing of vegetables and fruits.
I wonder, when the inflation is all time low according to media reports, how can the prices be so high? Most of the vegetables were selling Rs 15 for a paw. It meant Rs 60 a kilo. Why should it be so high? Is it untimely rain, as claimed? Is it because of excessive transportation cost? Is it because the farmers are paid a higher price? I would have been happy if the growers would have got even 25% of the price of the beans I bought at Rs 60 a kilo. One of my acquaintances told me it was because of Navratra.
Reliance Fresh, Subidha, Bharati came in the organized retail sector with a promise to provide the best price to the farmers along with the assistance in other inputs. It also promised the lower price. But as it seems the move is going to face a fresh resistance from the trade associations of variously named middlemen backed by politicians. In UP as well as Orissa, Reliance Fresh had to close the shops. Perhaps, the Reliance group was too fast in expanding its wings without doing the preparation work with the supporting groups and opinion builders. It couldn’t take the farmers on its side in big way. I am sure the number of farmers is much more than the middlemen, but the later are more organized. And ultimately, both the producers as well as consumers will suffer the same nightmare that I suffer whenever I go to this Sunday Bazaar. The vendors charge the ‘opportunity price’ that is extremely high whenever and whatever they could manage. It is the opportunity price that make onion price going very high for few days. And the poor farmers hardly get any share of this pick pocketing by these vendors. But the maximum benefits go to the middlemen at various stages without doing much value-addition.
Unless the government supports the organized sector can’t make a big entry in retail of vegetables and fruits, though that will be advantageous for both the most affected class- farmers/ growers and consumers.
Unfortunately, Rs 60 per kilo of vegetable doesn’t get reflected in the inflation rate that is today at the lowest. Will the Leftists do something about it? Alas! The leftists too are on the side of the middlemen, not with the farmers/ growers or consumers. To them, the middlemen, who are mostly business class, are underprivileged and ’sarbahara’.
- Indra
Category: Government Policy/Administration |
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