Poor are eating more and it’s a challenge: Kamal Nath

The inflation rate touched a three-year high of 7% on Friday pushing a panic button in the government as the ruling Congress continued to grope in the dark to arrest the galloping prices of essential commodities.

A few days after agriculture minister Sharad Pawar blamed the South Indians for eating more chapatis causing wheat shortage, commerce minister Kamal Nath on Friday said increased food consumption by poor people is a challenge before the government. “We have great supply-side challenges in India at the moment with 15 million people moving from having one meal a day to two meals a day,” Nath said on the the sidelines of a conference in Singapore.

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“Consumption of foodgrains have nearly doubled,” he said. Nath also said the government will take stern action against hoarders and blackmarketeers, a step, the Left parties have been demanding since several months, to contain price rise.

Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar, undaunted by criticism by a section of Congressmen for his being indifferent to the price rise, said, “there was sufficient foodgrains in the stock and therefore there is no need to worry. And that the steps taken by the government would take a few days to yield results.”

Under pressure from the allies, especially the Left which is threatening to launch a “militant” agitation across the country, the union cabinet had on Monday announced a slew of measures to contain spiralling prices.

Not satisfied by the “half-hearted” steps such as slashing import duty on crude edible oil and other edible oils, the CPI(M) is planning to call on prime minister Manmohan Singh to discuss the issue. The Left in conjunction with the United National Progressive Alliance parties are meeting here on Tuesday to discuss contours of a joint agitation against skyward prices.

“Well, I would say this particular price increase is really the effect of certain situations in the international economic,” said noted economist Arjun Sengupta.

“The problem that has been caused recently is metal price increase. Wheat prices have started slackening, the essential commodity prices are not going up as fast. There is a major problem and it is what to do with the essential commodities,” Sengupta said.

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“The mistake that everybody is making – according to me – is talking about inflation in general. This inflation is not a momentary phenomenon because our domestic demand has not got out of sync with international demand,” he said.

Putting up a brave front Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi said, “wait for a few weeks more for the cumulative impact of the measures we have taken.

There is no magic button. If the opposition knows one, they should let us know. We are more concerned than anybody else.”

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