Skip to main content

RISING PRICES AND THE MIDDLE CLASS To eat or not to eat, that is the question

By himalayanreview

GANGTOK, April 4: The pinch felt by the middle class due to inflation and increasing rise in the prices of essential commodities across the country has not left Sikkim alone either.
Today, inflation shot to an all-time high of 7 percent in the country.
SIKKIM EXPRESS today spoke to a cross-section of people in the market and tried to get their reactions on the rising prices and the dent it has made into the monthly household budget. A large chunk of the consumers comprised of those belonging to the working middle class of the society.
“It is impossible to manage the monthly household expenses any more. Even with two working members in our family of four, we have to be very careful with our spendings,” says Sangeeta, who runs a small business. Her husband works in private company. Both of them bring home about Rs. 10,000 together. With two school-going children, every month is a trial by fire for her.
While the prices of almost all essential commodities have risen over the weeks, it is Mustard oil that has dearer with a hike of Rs 10 per liter.
As per the notification issued by the Department of Food and Civil supplies and Consumers Affairs Department dated March 12, 2008 the rate of one-liter mustard oil is Rs 94 per kg while earlier it was Rs 84 per kg.
The price of vegetable ghee (hydrogenated oils like Dalda) comes second with Rs 82 per kg followed by refined edible oil at Rs 87 per kg.
There has been marginal increase in the prices of other essential commodities like various Dals, rice, flour (Atta and Maida), Suji and Sugar as well.
Mridula Tamang, a house wife from Sichey, is already feeling pinch and finds it difficult to run her household with her husband’s meager income. “I just hope and pray that the State Government will do something to bring down the prices,” she says.
The story is the same with fruits and vegetables.
The vegetable hawkers in the Lall Market here say they are compelled to sell the vegetables keeping a margin of Rs 2 due to higher wholesale prices.
“Even with Rs 500, you hardly get a bag full of vegetables these days. It’s depressing as well as frightening,” says Hari Chettri, a government employee.
However, the whole sellers and vendors say that the change in the rates of essential commodities is a regular feature.
“We can’t presume what happens with the prices every fortnight; it’s very unpredictable,” says Ramlal Sharma, one of a whole seller.
Fruits like apples and oranges have seen a rise of Rs 5 per kg recently. The prices of the essential commodities per kg as per the latest notification of the Department are:

Mustard oil: Rs 94 per kg
Vegetable oil: Rs 82
Refined oil: Rs 87
Masur Dal: Rs 44
Mung Dal: 45
Chana Dal: 40
Arhar Dal: 46
Atta: 17
Maida : 18
Suji: 18
Rice (Mansury): Rs 15
Sugar: Rs 19.
http://www.sikkimexpress.com/topstories.htm
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

India’s illegal occupation of independent Sikkim has to be reversed

By himalayanreview
Extracted from Pakistan Defence India’s “Chief Executive” in Gangtok wrote: “Sikkim’s merger was necessary for Indian national interest. And we worked to that end. Maybe if the Chogyal had been smarter and played his cards better, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.” It is also said that the real battle was not between the Chogyal and Kazi Lendup Dorji but between their wives. On one side was Queen Hope Cook, the American wife of the Chogyal and on the other was the Belgian wife of the Kazi, Elisa-Maria Standford. “This was a proxy war between the American and the Belgian,” says former chief minister BB Gurung. But there was a third woman involved: Indira Gandhi in New Delhi. Chogyal Palden met the 24-year-old New Yorker Hope Cook in Darjeeling in 1963 and married her. For Cook, this was a dream come true: to become the queen of an independent kingdom in Shangrila. She started taking the message of Sikkimese independence to the youth, and the allegations started flying thic...
19 comments
Read more

The Gorkhas - Sons of the Soil, Pride of the Nation

By himalayanreview
 Nanda Kirati Dewan, a journalist from Assam traces the origin of the Gorkhas in India. Many people have misconceptions about the Gorkhas in India - that they are foreigners and have migrated from Nepal. There could not be a greater mistake than this. The Gorkhas are in fact the aborigines of India and they can trace their history back to ancient times. The Gorkha community is the product of Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid assimilation from ages past. As a linguistic group, they can trace their origin back to Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman beginnings. In fact, the Gorkhas consist of both Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid racial groups. In the Mahabharata and Manusmriti names of Khasa are mentioned. They are in fact the Gorkhas. The Gorkhas spoke the language then known as Khaskura Khasas as a community existed in Nepal which it later changed to another ethnic name. The Lichchhavis, one of the aboriginal tribes of India originally lived in the plains of present Nepal. During the early centu...
9 comments
Read more

The legend of April "73" Agitation in Sikkim

By himalayanreview
I was not born when Sikkim got merged with the mighty Indian Union, but being a student of Sikkim History, all that is available to me is a rack of books by different authors and those old folks who had been part of that historical “April ‘73’ Agitation”.  When I go through the history of Sikkim, April ‘73 Agitation holds an important role, mostly as the turning point of the Independent Sikkim and the Sikkim State. The mass demonstrations against the Chogyal rule shocked the 300-year-old monarchy system and ushered in democratic rule in Sikkim.  The agitation was a result “due to big differences which ensued with the demand of repoll in one booth by Kazi Lhendup Dorji and Mr. Krishna Chandra Pradhan, as such the Chogyal had to face the people’s agitation launched by the Joint Action Committee with the tacit blessings of the Government of India. This people’s political movement spearheaded by Kazi Lhendup Dorji finally resulted in Sikkim joining the mainstream as the 22nd State...
2 comments
Read more