Inflating inflation

The week end food inflation index is again up, moving from 8.84 to 9.13 and Finance minister’s statement on this is: “increase in food inflation is area of grave concern”. Haven’t we been listening this same statement for past 2-3 years after release of each weekly inflation data?

No not same always, as I remember at the starting point of inflation spiral statement was something like this “unprecedented growth of India has put more money on Indian’s hand hence spurring the demand, which in turn is actuating the inflation. Inflation is demand driven and govt. can do little about it as it can’t hurt the growth in process”. After some time our minister realizes that he can’t kick this logic on the empty stomach of millions of Indian for so long, so act of denial changed into act of acceptance. This is the new stance adopted by government; when inflation figures come then just show your worried face to media and accept that it’s a disturbing trend, but do nothing about it.

When at first I saw minister accepting this fact then I took sigh of relief that govt. has finally realized the problem and they will take action on it. But soon it was clear that this act of acceptance is not going to result in any concrete action. We have to live and satiate our problem only with a candid admission of problem by our minister.

I don’t know whether growth in this decade is unprecedented or not (it’s certainly not) but shooting price of food articles are certainly unprecedented, which is hitting millions of Indian. 75% Indians are below poverty level (if we don’t consider the frivolous affidavit given by planning commission to the court , as per which person earning 26 rs or more in rural place cannot be considered as poor) who struggle hard for the basic necessity of the life and food constitute large chunk for that struggle. In this scenario if this persisting adamant high inflation completely erodes their income and forces them into an abject poverty where it would be completely impossible to sustain, then who is responsible for this? No matter what is the driving force behind inflation: whether international scenario, or high growth (which is highly unlikely) or high demand or whatever it is, a willing and capable government has always many tools to fight it. And if a government says that it is incapable of doing so then it has no right to govern. There are several short term and long term measure to fight inflation (whatever the reason behind it), but government doesn’t seem to doing anything at all except giving statements. It’s highly probable that now government might have been thinking of some new format of statement to give as we are tired of listening the same statement over and over.

But when we are going to get a policy change instead of a mere statement change? I fervently hope that answer is not: "Never".