Bhubaneswar: Price rise haunts Odisha acutely. The State tops the country by virtue of recording steepest ever rise in prices of food commodities.
The most disconcerting trend observed is rural Odisha seems a stressed lot in country. The big reason is people in the villages of Odisha are bearing the brunt of country-highest spike in inflation rate.
This explosive revelation popped out when the National Statistics Office (NSO) recently released the annualised inflation rate for the month of January 2020.
The NSO data shows Odisha emerging the top pricey state in the country, and the national-highest rural inflation propelling Odisha to occupy the dubious distinction nationally.
As per the NSO, annual price rise in rural Odisha has breached the psychological barrier of 10 per cent to touch 10.29 per cent. This shows rural Odisha is now witnessing a double-digit inflation rate.
The data shows Consumer Price Index (CPI) for rural Odisha in Jan 19 was 140 points. It rose to 154.4 in Jan 2020. The year-on-year (y-o-y) price rise, thus, has been estimated at 10.29 per cent.
The significant message for the powers that be is Odisha is the only state to post such a steep price rise in last one -year (2019-20).
The NSO data on price rise shows the situation in urban Odisha is not as acute as in rural Odisha, though the State figured in the top-10 pricey states by occupying the 6th slot nationally. The annual price rise in urban Odisha is estimated at 8.16 per cent.
Another significant indication here is gap between rural and urban inflation rate stood at a high of 2.13 per cent, which is 2nd highest in country. The significance here is this brings to glare the urban-rural divide of the living index in the State.
Owing to nation-highest rural inflation, in the combined Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of January 2020, Odisha topped the country with a rate of 9.72 per cent.
It needs mentioning here that the combined Inflation rate in December 2019 in Odisha stood at 9.41 per cent. In contrast, the price rise at the national level has been at around 7.73 per cent.
Simply explained, the commodities in Odisha have become costlier in Jan 2020 at a faster rate than the national average price rise.
Fact crunching shows that inflation rate based on combined Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the month of Jan 2020 in Odisha is highest in last half-a-decade. The CPI for Odisha was at 8.06 per cent in January 2015.
The high price rise in Odisha poses a question. Is Odisha heading towards the double digit inflation rate of the 2009 era?
The risk lies for Odisha. Because, NSO data attributes the steep rise in rural Odisha to food commodities. And Odisha being a consumer state, virtually depends on other states for its food requirements.
A glance at the CSO data shows it’s the prices of vegetables that had jacked up the prices in Odisha. Pulses and eggs followed. Vegetable prices, including onion, up by over 50 per cent. Pulse prices up by 16 per cent and eggs by over 11 per cent, reveals the NSO data.
As per SBI research, the price rise in high inflation states to remain firm for the next two months (February and March).
A trend observed over the years reveal that during the times of seasonal shocks, price rise in Odisha has been the steepest.
Alas, unlike other states, Odisha has no high-level monitoring group over price rise. Relevance of the group: It forms strategy to contain seasonal spikes via raising production of main food commodities and augmenting of cold storage facilities.