Budget hits price bump in Kerala

Thiruvananthapuram: The 'solar' and 'bar' scandals seem to have done what the technique of skin stimulation has done to patients suffering from intense pain: They have shifted the public's attention from the most burning issue of price rise. Last year, when these scandals monopolised popular imagination, prices of essential commodities kept soaring; in the case of pulses by an average of 85 per cent and vegetables by 35-40 per cent.

Floods in Chennai had a bearing on vegetable prices, and rainfall deficit had impacted pulses production in North India. "But this does not excuse the state government for its failure to intervene in the market," said economist Dr Nagaraj Naidu. According to figures put out by the Economics and Statistics Department, the prices of some of the items housewives commonly use — ash gourd (kumbalanga), snake gourd (padavalanga), tomato, ladies finger (vendakka), carrot, black gram (uzhunnu parippu), and Bengal gram (kadala) —have shot up over 50 per cent in a single year. Even the price of eggs has gone up by nearly 15 per cent.

The rise in vegetable prices looks disproportionate, considering the near revolutionary revival of domestic vegetable production.

"There is a welcome increase in the consumption of locally-produced vegetables," said agriculture expert R Haley. "The state is at least 40 per cent self-sufficient in vegetables and in four or five years the state would be self-sufficient," Dr Naidu said.

A chunk of the increased vegetable prices can be accounted for by the presence of middlemen. "It is here that government intervention is called for," said Gopan Mukundan of Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad. "Let’s ensure that at least a small portion of the increased price reaches the farmer," he said.

According to him, the pulses market is controlled by monopoly traders in North India. "They do forward trading and fix prices according to their whims," he said. "Only effective market intervention policies can save the state from the tyranny of these traders," he said. It is also a fact that the area under pulses cultivation in North India is shrinking.