There is a song in the movie ‘Peepli Live… Mehengai Dayan Khaaye Jaat Hai’, which means no matter how much we earn the price hike in everything, is killing us. It is actually true. I did not realize this until a few days ago when I went shopping.I was buying some household stuff that included some pulses, rice, vegetables and fruits. The bill came up to Rs.1000/-. When I went through the bill, I saw the prices of each. Dal was at Rs.100/kg where as rice was at Rs.40. I got another big shock a few days ago, when I was searching for good schools for my son’s admission. The school fee is actually more than my engineering fee, and I am talking about just the kindergarten. I wonder what is it going to be by the time my son reaches graduation.
There were days (seems like centuries back) when we bought stuff for a family of seven and the bill would not exceed Rs.500/-. Those were some days… Now we earn just to fulfill our basic needs. No matter how much we earn at the end of 2nd week of a month, we are back to square one where we are again working to survive the first two weeks of the next month.
Why is it like this? I started questioning myself and first I could not think of an answer. I was worried about this and it was at the back of my mind. Suddenly, there came an issue in my house about selling a land. Then, it clicked my head.
My dad and in-laws are actually farmers but we just could not survive on that and hence they moved to the city to earn more. If they moved to the city, what happened to the land owned by them? It either is sold, or is left as it is because nobody is ready to grow anything on it. If this is the case with my family, then what about the others (farmers I mean)? I guess they are doing the same. Hence, the demand is more and supply less which is the reason for the price hike in everything.
One more reason that I could think of was population. We are having more mouths than we can actually feed. There are many more reasons to it. Bad government, corrupt politicians, etc. I was reading an article on Times of India today when I came across a blog about MLAs.
Did you know: Their salary with other benefits and “stuff” comes up to around Rs.2 crore! Yes, that’s right 2 crores!!! That is how much they earn every year. That means we are not a poor country and can afford to help the farmers so that they grow more and balance the demand and supply equation. If the Government can pay a MLA so much for doing nothing, can’t they invest half of that money to develop our country (including all MLA’s half annual salaries)? They can and should. If they do, we will not have such price hikes, we can give people basic needs, good education, basic amenities to survive and much more… Then, why isn’t the government doing so? I have no idea why. However, I want to know what to do when we know about the corruption and Indian black money millionaires and all. What is it that as an Indian citizen I can do to stop all this so that many like us can benefit from it (Talking about every one actual excluding the filthy rich)?
Please let me know, as to what can I do? I cannot work for 10 hrs a day to survive only first two weeks of every month and then have to choose between the cheapest schools (or Government schools) for my son’s admission.
