Over the last few months, common people had been feeling the heat while purchasing bare essentials for survival such as vegetables and food items. Except for onion prices which broke enviable records and managed to create noise, there weren’t much serious glances as issues such as CAA-NRC-NPR had been too grave to ignore and kept all busy. But thanks to inflation data released by NSO on Monday, the issue had at last got official recognition. There had been constant deliberations regarding the current shaky state of the Indian economy and till now, the only element of confidence had been inflation not crossing discomfort levels. That too gone, the overall task of bringing the economy in shape will turn out to be more toiling now. Meanwhile, common people continue getting pushed more towards the edge since dwindling incomes arising out of widespread unemployment and overall slowdown had already made the going tough.             
The data shows that vegetable items, which unquestionably form a part of daily necessities for all had touched the highest inflation rate at 60.5 % in December 2019, followed by pulses products at 15.44 %, meat and fish at 9.57 % and egg at 8.79 %, besides other items, thereby contributing to overall retail inflation rate to touch a staggering 7.35%, which is the highest since July 2014. Raids of inflation burning common man’s pocket is nothing new, but this time it is much disturbing since the current rate of retail inflation is running at a pace which is way beyond the tolerance limit set for RBI’s Monetary Policy Committee. However technical it may sound, a few comparative figures will be necessary to explain the commoner’s woes. Coming to Wholesale Price Index based inflation, it has touched a seven-month high of 2.59 % in December 2019 when a month earlier in November it was 0.58 %, the main contributors being onions and potatoes among others that witnessed exorbitant price rise. Meanwhile, the overall retail inflation based on Consumer Price Index  has also seen a northward trend and had actually more than doubled from 2.11 % in December 2018 to 5.54 % in November 2019. The worry doesn’t end here if SBI Research Report- Ecowrap is to be believed which predicts that there might be nearly 16 lakh less job creation in financial year 2020 compared to 89.7 lakh fresh jobs created in 2019.
The picture as a whole is such dismal that talks of stagflation, which defines the critical stage of an economy bogged down by the trio of inflation, stagnant economic growth and relatively high unemployment, are already doing rounds. There must now be some serious thoughts, genuine intentions and most importantly, ‘allotment of time’ to seek solutions.

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Kenter Joya Riba

(Managing Editor)
      She is a graduate in Science with post graduation in Sociology from University of Pune. She has been in the media industry for nearly a decade. Before turning to print business, she has been associated with radio and television.
Email: kenterjoyaz@easternsentinel.in / editoreasternsentinel@gmail.com
Phone: 0360-2212313

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