Inflation deprives the poor of meals

[LRE]

Inflation deprives the poor of meals



Saturday, August 09, 2008
Saadia Khalid

Islamabad

Increasing inflation has deprived labourers and workers to have a decent meal on a very reasonable price, as makeshift food stalls have increased the prices of food by Rs10 to Rs20 over a single plate.

During a survey of different stalls ‘The News’ learnt that an average cost of per meal have increased up to Rs50-70 which was previously available for Rs18-30.

The majority of labourers and workers in the capital belongs to the other parts of the country and are living here without their families, while these roadside stalls were the convenient and cheap source for providing meal to them.

Talking to ‘The News’ the visitors of these stalls said that they voted in the present government in a hope that it would take revolutionary steps for the relief of a common man but the prevailing inflation was worse than ever.

Ishaq Alam, a labourer, said he thought that the new government would work for the relief of common people but greatly disappointed with their performance till now.

“They rather have deprived us from two time meal,” he said while adding that the current inflation in the country was worse than ever.

Saleem Janjua, a low grade government official, said that these roadside stalls were like blessing for the people like him but the prevailing inflation not depriving us from this cheap source of food but also depriving these stallholders from their source of income.

“It’s like discouraging people from earning money through hard work and encouraging them to adopt unfair means to make their both ends meet,” he said.

Munawar Azeem, a worker at a private firm, said that the increased food prices was making hard for him to save money for his family residing at Bahawalnagar.

“It is not possible for me to spend daily Rs100 over two time meal so I decided to skip my day meal,” he said.

During day time these roadside stalls used to appear crowded with people having ‘cholay’, ‘daal channa’ and ‘rice’ but now only few customers visit these stalls while majority of the customers prefer to skip their meal or suffice themselves by having just ‘naan’.

Talking to ‘The News’ stallholders said that they had no other option but to increase the prices of food as the cost of the food had increased manifold due to increase in the price of raw food material.

“We would have never increased the price of meal but it was getting hard for us to meet the cooking cost of the food,” said Shahab Ahmed, a stallholder.

He said that the prices of each and every cooking item ranging from red chilli to cooking oil had increased more than double. “The government made it hard for us to survive with dignity,” he said.

Mahboob Khan, another stallholder said that customers argue with them as they think that we were overcharging. “Although they are aware of the growing inflation yet they are not ready to pay accordingly,” he said.

The stallholders appealed to the government to have mercy on them and take some immediate steps to stop this growing inflation in the country that is making it hard for a poor man to manage two-time meal.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=129069