Achche din only for common man

As he completes six months in office, the common man is beginning to see achche din when it comes to the prices of essential commodities with a sharp fall in retail inflation from 8.28 per cent in May to 5.52 per cent in October 2014.

Vegetable prices are witnessing a major turnaround from a huge 15.27 per cent to minus 1.45 per cent in these months, claims a study by Assocham. The common man has also felt a great relief with regard to the prices of cereals and products, fish, meat and eggs and milk and milk products in the last six months.

The retail inflation of cereals and products has fallen from 8.81 per cent to six per cent, fish-meat-egg from 10.11 per cent to 6.34 per cent and milk and milk products from 11.28 per cent to 0.79 per cent between May and October, 2014, the study claims.

As for middle class families, major relief has come in the form of lower petrol and diesel prices. The fuel cost of running a car or two-wheeler has come down by 7-9 per cent in the last six months.

However, the Assocham. notes that there has not been good news for industry as industrial production and growth has been zig- zagging.

Overall economic development will need to be given much more push so that more employment is generated from which the common man stands to gain. Says chamber secretary general D.S. Rawat, “While inflation has come down, it throws a big opportunity for structural reforms so that the central issues of high inflation and low growth are taken care of. Then really would be the life of a common man improved considerably.”

On the performance of the six months of the NDA government, he said that a big fall in international crude prices has helped the situation and brought in pots of luck for government and the economy. “We only hope that government is able to forge a consensus on crucial reforms like raising FDI in insurance and GST bill,” he said.