Sugar price
Sugar price hike is caused by two very simple reasons. First, we are a heavily sugar-deficit nation. Secondly, the second biggest exporter of the sweetener in the International market, India, has suffered crop-failure this year resulting in less production of sugar and ban on export sale. Meanwhile, in global market sugar price has risen quite sharply. We know in market-economy price of a commodity is solely determined on demand-supply formula, no amount of moral persuasion or punitive threat can hold the pattern in check.
However, in such a situation what the concerned ministry could have done quietly without much ado is to set up an efficient, non-corrupt distribution network throughout the country with whatever little stock of sugar it could garner locally and internationally to intervene in the market to douse the rage to some extent before it is too late.
Nobel Laureate Prof. Dr. Amartya Sen in his famous research findings on the last great Bengal famine concluded that the famine was not so much caused by food scarcity but appalling failure of the distribution mechanism then in place.
It is highly relevant to mention here that our next-door neighbour, India's growth-miracle in every walk of national life was made possible, according to their own admission, only by exploiting the immense resources the rural India holds.
Tagore once said if we forget vast rural India and only nourish a few scattered urban spots, progress and development would always remain a far cry.
I trust our policy makers at the helm will not lose sight of this very fundamental thing to usher in a real 'change' in our country.
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