Crisis of commodity is no problem, affordability is

The litany of assurances of measures to solve any crisis including containing price hikes of essentials is a trademark playing-to-the-gallery ploy resorted to by a political government. This is not expected from an interim non-political government. Results of its actions should speak for itself. But when the commerce adviser claims that the government has no Aladdin's lamp in its hand to bring commodity prices down overnight, it sounds like the oft-repeated jargon functionaries of the past dictatorial or autocratic regimes used. The common consumers writhing under the grinding inflation remain unconvinced because after seven months of this government's assumption of power, it is no longer 'overnight' by any standard.
Some of the advisers seem to follow the traditional practice of useless rhetoric as they claim that government measures like hiking taxes, including value-added tax (VAT), will not raise prices of commodities. Months before, they started harping---and still do--- on the same tune that there will be no shortage of the sought-after commodities during the Ramadan. The all important issue in this country is not shortage but keeping the price within common people's affordability. If the prices of rice, cooking oil and other essentials continue to soar, the majority of the people have to reduce their consumption of the pricey items in search of cheaper alternatives. Many even go hungry.
The people are too tired to listen, 'This will be done, that will be done'. They were subjected to an overdose of such rhetoric during the past decades. They really hoped to heave a shy of relief under this interim government. Now, after seven months, they feel frustrated because they know well enough that there is no crisis of rice right at this moment and yet the prices are going up and up from one level to the next level. There is no knowing where it will end up ultimately in the lean season, particularly when this can happen in peak harvesting period.
Now to invoke the subject of Aladdin's magic lamp is an affront to the people struggling to survive. The way taxes on more than a hundred commodities and services are raised should have been compatible with similar alacrity for intervention in the market. But it has proved to be a double whammy for the nation because the exchequer loses a huge amount of income on account of the duty waiver on import of rice and a number of commodities and at the same time instead of the public the importers and businesspeople become the sole beneficiaries on both counts. Price lines go up with no impact of the duty waiver on those.
There should have been a perceptible different and qualitative and coordinated administrative approach to fight the market manipulation. How businesspeople apply both manipulative and arm-twisting tactics had a vicious display in case of cooking oil when the commodity suddenly disappeared from the supply chain. That was a clear-cut deliberate attempt to create an artificial crisis of the widely used soybean oil. Instead of taking stern measurers against the business intrigues, the government gave into the pressures of refiners and importers of the cooking oil by acceding to their demands for an increase in price. Following the price increase, supply became normal. Once again the same bizarre tactic is reportedly being applied and supply crunch is already there.
The people cannot eat vat waiver nor words of assurance. They gave the interim government reasonably enough time to settle down and come hard upon business syndicates whose mindless profiteering has ever fuelled inflation. In fact, the government, when it was riding on the wave of popular support, could launch an incisive drive instead of following the ineffective swoop by mobile courts to give a clear message of its intention to go all out against hoarding and creation of artificial crisis.
The government did fix prices of some commodities but to no avail. This is because it did not do the homework. What it needed was to tally the total import price in the LC (letters of credit) and other related documents, transport costs etc.; with the price of the source country and also the wholesale and retail prices at home. Only then could it enforce the price it fixed for commodities. Notwithstanding import of rice in peak harvesting season of Aman, galloping price of the staple is artificially maintained. So, the administrative legitimacy is there to go the whole hog against the 'enemies of the people' which market manipulators have turned into.

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