Rising Food Prices Harm India’s Poor, Middle Class

February 20, 2013

Major trade unions in India have called a nationwide strike beginning Wednesday to protest increased fuel costs, inflation and what they say are the government’s failed economic policies. Retail inflation, which hit nearly 11 percent in January, is affecting the country’s poor and middle class.

It’s 5 p.m. and customers are crowding this vegetable market in the northern Indian city of Lucknow.

Annamma Rajput listens closely to the vendors and then haggles to bring prices down. She focuses on the onion - an Indian staple used in nearly every dish - whose price has jumped dramatically in recent months.

“Onion was 10 rupees, 15 rupees a kg [kilogram], now it is 20, 40 something like that. It’s very expensive for the common people,” said Rajput.

And for the school coordinator, spending more on produce, means having less to spend on other household goods.

"It is so expensive. What will we do for our other things also? We have got children, we have to bring them up - vegetables are not the basic thing for the children, isn’t it?” she asked.

India’s consumer price inflation rose to 10.79 percent in January and government figures show the price of vegetables increased by 26 percent compared to December of last year.

At the Lucknow market, retired geology department director S.F. Farooqui said the government’s recent increase in fuel prices is partly to blame.