People are dying
The Supreme Court’s frustration over unchecked increase in flour price is understandable, especially when people are dying of hunger despite Pakistan being supposedly self-sufficient in food production. The matter of food inflation has been in the news for some time now. Yet it seems to find little attention in the highest offices of the government. At the time of the budget, when the finance minister claimed having turned the economy around in the government’s first year in office, much hue and cry was raised about misleading inflation estimates, along with other very important numbers (including the GDP growth rate, for example). The minor decrease in CPI, which brought it into single digits, did not bring much comfort to ordinary people. And the principal reason was food inflation, especially staple food.
The price fluctuation in flour, which has rightly been brought to the Supreme Court’s notice, is especially worrying. As noted in this space before, with wheat price fixed for the last couple of years, persistent rise in flour price is impossible to explain, and borders on the criminal when related government departments refuse to take action. And now that the apex court has taken the lead, it will be instructive to see what becomes of various schemes provincial food departments are boasting to address the situation. The memory of the Tharparkar tragedy, when hundreds of children died of malnutrition, is still fresh. And if government departments are found sleeping while more such tragedies brew, they will find it difficult to escape the people’s fury, no matter how impressive their self-made numbers of growth, inflation, reserves, etc.
As the Court noted, “Forming laws, authorities and committees does not help the poor”, the government is reminded that its foremost priority is the people of Pakistan. The world around us is making progress while our poverty bulge keeps expanding. And the government has only itself to blame if nobody believes its claims regarding poverty alleviation, just as nobody will believe its rhetoric about growth, turnaround and economic expansion. The average Pakistani is in a world of troubles. The economy, in reality, is very weak. Jobs are few and wages inadequate. Then there is the power crisis, which has led to a visible rise in overall frustration. Add to this mix unaffordable food, and push can quickly come to shove. Flour, and other items of staple diet, have not often been outside the common man’s affordable range. And now that such a trend has emerged, the government should take immediate, and very strict, notice, or prepare to face the consequences.
