The Food Bill and the Common man- reduced to a lower class.
I am a common man, a middle class
one all my life, happy with simple pleasures of life, leading the life millions
in this country live every day.
I got married , had children a
few years later and continued with my job. As I had a good job with a steady
income, careful planning and saving helped me buy a flat, a car and give my
wife and children all basic necessities. We used to have our weekly dinner
outside, a movie if the kids insisted and the occasional holiday to our native
place and once even abroad.
Life was good and uneventful. The
children grew up, went to college and are getting ready to settle down. The
wife and I have normal health issues, common among those in their fifties. Then
over the last few years life got tougher.
It started with the rise in sugar
prices, followed by that of onions, vegetables. In the absence of any valid
reasons for such high prices, someone suggested that a big politician and his
cronies were making money. Then came the steady increase in petrol prices,
leaving us with fewer trips by car even though the auto rickshaw fares had also
gone by steeply.
Soon came news of the telecom
scam, the coal scam and what not. The thousands of crores mentioned did not
make sense to us as we had no hopes of seeing such money. My son who was
planning to get married, was on the lookout for a decent flat but in Mumbai,
the cheapest flat even in a far away suburb
was quoting over 1 crore. The value of money, especially of one crore
was being made clearer for us. We also realised that our flat had appreciated
by over 20 times but then could not convert the same to liquid cash as we would
then not be able to afford a flat anywhere else.
Over these years, our worthy
Finance Minister had been slowly bringing in less noticed taxes that would
strangulate us later. Thus there was the service tax on everything possible;
some VAT, luxury tax etc. A simple calculation made indicated that we are
paying almost 70 per cent of our income to the govt. by way of some tax. This I realised was the
reason why money was running out faster than before, upsetting all our plans to
save.
The result? We stopped going out
for meals, less of shopping for clothes; no holidays and even the children’s’
pocket money was getting rationed. It was unbelievable that we who had such a
comfortable life till a few years ago, now had to struggle through simple
everyday existence.
The last straw was the rupee
devaluation which we are told could affect our pockets even more adversely. The
cost of everything will go up; there will be very little scope for things to
improve. And just forget about the good old days, they will never come back.
There is of course talk that with elections due next year, there will be a
steady increase in prices ; all to help
fund election expenses.
My son who has landed a good job
now keeps asking me how I managed to run our household on an unimaginably small
sum in the earlier days. I told him to ask his mother who has of late been
experimenting with a number of internet aided shortcuts in cooking to reduce
onions, oil and other costly ingredients.
The middle class in India never
had to worry about hunger as they were able to manage comfortably with the
limited income they had. With higher incomes but nothing else under their
control, most middle class ones are getting reduced to a lower class in terms
of the cost of living index. The recently passed Food Bill which guarantees
food to all is welcome gesture but again at what cost?. The added expenses could be passed onto the
poor middle class by way of more taxes, most of them indirect.
Could we also then get covered
under the provisions of the Food Bill so that we can get back to the comfort
level at least where food for the family is concerned?
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