Amid rising prices, cheerless harvest festival in Karnataka (Letter from Bangalore)

BANGALORE - The lowest priced vegetable, sweet pumpkin, costs Rs.12 a kg, the humble drumstick a whopping Rs.134 a kg, watermelon at Rs.15 a piece is the cheapest fruit while the exotic kiwi fruit comes at a cool Rs.225 a kg.

The prices may go up by another 25 percent in the next two days as people across Karnataka get ready to celebrate Makara Sankranti, a major festival in the state marking the advent of harvest season Jan 15.

There is no clarity on why the prices of vegetables and fruits are hitting north relentlessly even in Karnataka, which ranks seventh in the country in vegetable production and eighth in fruit production.

The annual fruit production in the state is around 5.5 million tonnes and vegetables 6.7 million tonnes.

It is not just consumers who are complaining about the rising prices of food items. Farmers too say that they continue to get a less than favourable price for their produce while in the market it is sky high.

Political parties are so busy exposing land scandals, illegal mining, nepotism and corruption during each other’s rule, there is hardly a word from them on prices going through the roof.

All that Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa, battling a slew of charges over favouring his kin with prime land in and around Bangalore, has done is blame the central government for the continuously worsening price situation.

With onion prices touching Rs.100 a kg, Yeddyurappa did hold a meeting with senior officials and said later he had directed them to take steps to keep the prices under control.

The prices in the market do not reflect that any action has been taken at all. There is not even any effort to explain to the people the causes that keep pushing up prices.

While in the national capital Delhi and some other places there was an income tax raid on traders, particularly those into onion trading, no such action has taken place in Karnataka, the second largest onion producer in the country.

Onion production in the state was affected as north Karnataka, the major producer, was hit by heavy rains during monsoon and also unseasonal rains later.

The main opposition Congress and the struggling-to-remain-relevant Janata Dal-Secular have not even made cursory noises over price rise. They are fully immersed in exposing the scandal of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s first government in south India and agitating for Yeddyurappa’s ouster.

“Forget about action, there is not even a discussion by the political class in the state on the hardships caused to people due to price rise,” said S.K. Sandhya, a crafts teacher in the city, referring to the stalled legislature that began its first session of the new year Jan 6.

“Ahead of every festival, vegetable and fruit prices are upped by traders to make a fast buck. But for several months now there is hardly any difference between festival and non-festival days,” rued K. Vasudha, a homemaker.

Quipped N. Prassana Kumar, a software engineer with a leading IT firm: “Well, we at least have a harvest of scandals, don’t we?”