Dear ‘O’ Dear !!!

Alarm bells started ringing in within the coalition members of the UPA and the Congress party itself when the country saw a new high in the inflation rate when it rose to 6.73% for the week ended Feb 3^rd. When compared to previous high of 6.58 % seen during the week ended Jan 27^th this new high has certainly started to concern the ruling party. What is particularly disconcerting is the fact that the inflation rate with the same government a year ago was at a mere 3.98 % well under the 5-5.5% that was fixed by the RBI. The government would have to do really well to sustain the pressure for the ever rising prices. The finance minister had admitted that this was a real concern and said that the rise in prices was really affecting the common man.  The main reason is that the sudden surge in price was observed particularly in the some primary food articles and some manufactured products. This has proved that the rise in inflation when it comes to the food segment is not seasonal and the rise in prices of food commodities like milk sugar, vegetable oil was certainly making life difficult to the common man. Immediate effects were seen when the government had reduced the fuel prices, petrol and diesel by two rupees and one rupee respectively. The Prime Minister stated that this reduction in prices should have a moderating impact on bringing down the inflation as often the transportation costs will have a cascading effect on the price of the commodities. With the budget season just around the corner there is a lot of thinking for the Finance Minister to do. As far as the common man is considered its not a pleasant waiting game for him until then. !!