Make Food Affordable for us!

And so the vicious cycle continues. Make basic food so unreasonably expensive, and all hell breaks loose. When was the last time you actually felt hungry or saw someone who was so desperately starved for food? People like this man witness this horror in their homes and communities every day. While this does move a little away from the nature of what Current is looking for in the segment of "Food Crisis", but I can't help but continue to highlight how the right to eat, or have access to food, is so common.

I'll put up all the videos again with sub titles later on, but until then, this text may help to understand what this gentleman is talking about...

See, what happens when commodities become more expensive is, for example, Rice has become Rs.100 per kilo, Ghee (cooking oils) is more than Rs.150, one individual, earning even a salary of Rs.3,000 or even Rs.4,500 and he has an average of 8 people in his home, and he is the sole breadwinner, the Government needs to think about how this can possibly work. That is a household of 8 people, one person who is earning for those 8 people, with increasing prices, perhaps his salary or payscale should also be increasing at the same rate.

I don't think it is possible for the Rs.4,500 breadwinner to last even a week, let alone a month. Take vegetables, milk, rice, the cost of everything has gone up. He can hardly afford to buy any of the things needed to run his home.

Children are studying in schools and even the fees of those are so difficult to sustain - there are few government schools, and so children that study in the private schools also are a burden to have to manage their fees.

Question - What was life like before? How did you manage before the inflation in prices that you are talking about?
Answer: See, it used to be within our range to buy. We could afford something. Flour, that used to be 15 or 16 rupees per kilo was something we could afford. Now, all of a sudden, flour is being sold for 25 rupees per kilo. That is just difficult to manage. Now in order to afford the same amount of food, we have to work 16 instead of 12 hours and look for overtime separately.

At least that way, we can make something extra to manage our needs. Maybe we'll get an additional Rs.3,000 in overtime in a night duty somewhere. At least we'll be able to manage.

I think the Government needs to look at the fact that perhaps they cannot reduce the cost of petrol or oil, but at least these commodities such as flour, lentils, sugar... if they can't make these at nominal prices, then at least figure out a way so that we can afford to buy these.