Editorial . . . . . . . . 

According to the UN trade and development authority UNCTAD on Tuesday, rising food and energy costs, along with rapid inflation and mounting debt, are putting billions of people in the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. This situation is particularly catastrophic for the most vulnerable consumers. Our great India is also experiencing a severe cost of living crisis as a result of numerous internal and global crises, including increased poverty, joblessness, threatened food security, disincentives for farmers to raise food, and uneven administrative initiatives. The lack of a comprehensive strategy in the government’s approach to solving problems and its sporadic application of temporary solutions to fewer individuals who are actually in need only serve to worsen the cost of living crisis. For instance, the cost of a balanced meal in India in 2020 was estimated by the food security report of 2022 to be 2.970 dollars per day, and the number of people unable to afford it was 70.5 percent or 973.4 million people. But the government only provided food grains for 800 million people, leaving many other basic requirements unfulfilled. The food grains did not reach all of the targeted population even then due to corruption and other administrative mistakes, mainly because millions of people lacked the documents that the administration neglected to provide. An estimated 230 million people have already fallen into extreme poverty as a result of the pandemic’s two-year severity. The price increase has brought it up by many millions more.

According to the UNDP’s research, “Addressing the Cost-of-living Crisis in Developing Countries: Poverty and Vulnerability Projections and Policy Responses,” the current cost of living crisis has now spread to all countries. Since the entire world is currently experiencing this crisis and each nation has been struggling to solve its own difficulties, it is crucial that India address the situation largely on its own. India needs to wake up to the economic chaos and human suffering, and we must take the UNDP’s warnings seriously. Notably, it states that the “global food, fuel, and financial crises should be a warning to us all on Sri Lanka’s hardship.” Price increases have been raising the alarm of an unprecedented worldwide inflationary surge. Inflation rates of 6% in rich nations and 9% in underdeveloped nations were predicted by the IMF for 2022. In India, the CPI-measured headline retail inflation rate remained essentially steady, reaching a high of 7.01 percent in June as opposed to 7.04 percent in May. The impoverished in India are greatly impacted by it. India, therefore, needs a comprehensive strategy to balance cheap prices for consumers with eliminating price disincentives to farmers in order to maintain adequate food article production and smooth supply to consumers. It is necessary to expand national self-sufficiency in food grains to include all other crops, such as pulses and oilseeds. It is impossible to achieve without additional support for farmers in the form of lower input costs, enhanced scientific agriculture, and improved irrigation and agricultural market infrastructure.

However, if we don’t guarantee food security at the home level, it won’t be much use. India urgently needs a comprehensive social protection programme, both to help those who are in extreme need as a result of the rising cost of living and to prevent its social repercussions, such as general social unrest and the vulnerability of those in need to evildoers who take advantage of the situation. All goods and services need to be covered by a national price control framework. India immediately needs a comprehensive social protection programme not only to save people in great distress due to the deepening cost of living crisis but also to pre-empt consequences such as social unrest.