I could listen to parts of Sushma Swaraj’s speech in the Parliament on the issue of price rise (or high inflation) yesterday (Aug 3). And I was thoroughly impressed by her vision and her awareness to the ground realities. I would quote two very good points she made.
In the rural areas, previously when the women used to cook on earthen ovens (chullahs) they used to suffer from the unhealthy smoke. With economic growth in India, they started cooking on gas-ovens. But now the price of cooking gas has become so high that they are going back on wood as fuel. They say that they would make only minor items like tea on the gas-chullahs and would rely on wood or charcoal based chullahs for cooking, because these fuels come free or are very cheap. In a way, our government is forcing them to go back on the timeline.
Sonia Gandhi had accepted that the big projects and welfare schemes (like employment guarantee scheme, waiving loans, etc) require huge funding because of which petroleum prices needed to be increased. There is a phrase, “Aaj raat jiyenge to kal shahar dekhenge”. The poor are starving and not getting nutritious food because of high prices. They won’t be able to get medical treatment too because of the high costs. In such conditions, first they have to survive the price rise; then they would think about taking benefits of welfare schemes!
What Sushma Swaraj said was so true. I have always held that it was our governments incapability to plan properly and failure to recognise the problems and plug the loopholes which led to this situation (it has been going on since high inflation in 2008, then India becoming undue affected by global recession in 2009, and now again we are suffering from price rises). And it is a shame that in these challenging times our government is focussing on trivial issues like caste based census, quota for Muslims, debating on women’s reservation bill, or having talks with Pakistan.
- Rahul
In the rural areas, previously when the women used to cook on earthen ovens (chullahs) they used to suffer from the unhealthy smoke. With economic growth in India, they started cooking on gas-ovens. But now the price of cooking gas has become so high that they are going back on wood as fuel. They say that they would make only minor items like tea on the gas-chullahs and would rely on wood or charcoal based chullahs for cooking, because these fuels come free or are very cheap. In a way, our government is forcing them to go back on the timeline.
Sonia Gandhi had accepted that the big projects and welfare schemes (like employment guarantee scheme, waiving loans, etc) require huge funding because of which petroleum prices needed to be increased. There is a phrase, “Aaj raat jiyenge to kal shahar dekhenge”. The poor are starving and not getting nutritious food because of high prices. They won’t be able to get medical treatment too because of the high costs. In such conditions, first they have to survive the price rise; then they would think about taking benefits of welfare schemes!
What Sushma Swaraj said was so true. I have always held that it was our governments incapability to plan properly and failure to recognise the problems and plug the loopholes which led to this situation (it has been going on since high inflation in 2008, then India becoming undue affected by global recession in 2009, and now again we are suffering from price rises). And it is a shame that in these challenging times our government is focussing on trivial issues like caste based census, quota for Muslims, debating on women’s reservation bill, or having talks with Pakistan.
- Rahul
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