The price of tomato

Prime minister orders the setting up of a special cell to curb rising food inflation

A wisecrack has said: If you don’t read newspapers you are uninformed; if you read them you are misinformed. Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Dr Hafeez Shaikh caused the same embarrassment to the informed the other day when he snubbed a reporter, saying tomato was selling dirt cheap in Karachi. The reporter was drawing the attention of the adviser to the rising prices of food items. When the reporter said tomato was selling for Rs250-300 a kg in Karachi, the adviser dismissed him and said with all the confidence in the world that tomato was available at Rs17 a kg in Karachi’s sabzi mandi. There is nothing surprising about the answer.

However, the adviser’s claim about the price of tomato in Karachi does not in the least change the reality that tomato is selling at ridiculously inflated prices in the city. Its price has shot up so high that only those who have money to burn can buy it. Now that there are no buyers for this common kitchen item it is not being seen even on the carts of vegetable sellers. Besides, an onion which is an essential kitchen item is selling for Rs100-120 a kg. Prices of other vegetables too have shot up. As a result, most vegetables have gone beyond the reach of the common man.

Some quarters are attributing the rise in prices of vegetables to hoarding and smuggling to other countries. Our people are known to put up with many deprivations. So the rising food inflation is not much of a problem for them. But what has both saddened and bemused them is the kind of information that the adviser has about prices of food items. It is a total disconnect from the ground realities. The minister is, however, not that ignorant that he appears to be. He who answers every question, it is said, must be very ignorant. When the heart murmurs, the mouth does not obey properly.

The prime minister has ordered the setting up of a special cell to curb the rising food inflation.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 13^th, 2019.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.