A positive move but for the rider
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: September 30 2011 -

AMSU volunteers and women vendors of Ima Keithel going around shops trying to enforce AMSU's fixed price - Pix :: Hueiyen Lanpao

After the initial inaction which lasted for a considerable number of days, the government has taken some positive steps to control the galloping prices of essential commodities and ease the hardship to some extend.

Following up the decision taken on September 23 wherein it was decided to procure essential commodities from the open market from other states, the government opened mobile fair prices shops at various parts of the greater Imphal area.

The All Manipur Students Union, AMSU deserves a lot of credit for this development. They played a proactive role in fighting against the rising prices, launching a campaign against it, and going around the shops in bazar areas checking for hoarded items as also putting pressure on the shopkeepers to sell those at the pre blockades prices.

Though late in coming, the government has taken the right decision to ease the sufferings of the people by directly intervening and putting pressure on the shopkeepers to sell their stocks at a reasonable rate.

One other positive outcome of this decision is that it sets a precedent of direct intervention in the market which can replicated in future, though we sincerely hope we don't have to face such a crisis time and again on a routine basis.

For the present, the Consumer Affairs Food & Public Distribution Department will need to continue this exercise till the time the supply side stabilizes. The department also needs to expand its area of operation wider so that more people are covered.

If need be the amount already earmarked for this purpose should be enhanced. Though we are highly appreciative of the direct intervention in the market, we feel the conditions placed on the buyers might defeat the whole purpose of this exercise.

This pertains to the amount one can buy. The CAF&PD says any person wishing to buy any item should buy a minimum 5 kg of it but not more than 10 kg. While we have no issue with the upper limit of 10 kg considering the limited stock of essential commodities, we fail to understand necessity of a minimum limit of 5 kg.

Now suppose a daily wage earner wants to buy potato and Hawai Mangal, then he will have to shell out Rs 75/- and Rs 175/-for each of these items or a total of Rs 250/- for the two.

How does the government expect a person who earns barely Rs 100/- per day to spend Rs 250/- in a day for buying just two of the many items available in the mobile fair price shops.

What it means is that the CAF&PD by putting this condition of a minimum quantity has effectively put this fair price mobile shops out of the reach of the most vulnerable section of the society who ironically needs the maximum support from the government to survive not just in crisis time like this but even in the most 'normal' of times.

We would definitely like to see this condition of minimum quantity the CAF&PD has imposed scrapped at the earliest so that these mobile fair price shops are accessible to the poor and the needy.

More than anybody else it is the poor who need the support of the government; they cannot be left to the mercy of market forces even in normal times not to talk about crisis time.