The past few weeks have seen a unprecedented rise in the prices of several essentials including milk and vegetables in the city.
Adding to this, the steep fuel price hike taking petrol to well beyond INR 81 came as a rude shock to the citizens. Diesel and CNG price hikes have also led to several autos in the city demanding higher rates.
Citizens seem to have no option but to surrender to this unceremonious increase that is eating into their monthly household budgets. Pune365 met several affected constituents of the city, who shared their concerns on this:
Prakash Rao, Auto driver: We are regular earners and cannot afford to pay such high prices every day to buy a kilo of vegetables or groceries. And now the increase in the prices of petrol and CNG have really made it difficult for us. The online taxi service providers do not raise their prices until the hike is permanent or have reached a certain limit.
We are daily earners who have to survive in the market, will have to increase the fare to a considerable amount to be able to make any margin.
The problem arises when the passengers do not cooperated and think that it is unjust of us to increase the fare, leading them to choose other transport options.
Mayuri Patil, Vegetable vendor: With all this increase my customers have reduced the amount of vegetables they buy. They are expecting to see drops in the prices of the vegetables hence are just waiting.
We are not even able to buy our stock in large quantities due to the increased prices.
Kishan Kumar, Accounts associate: Petrol prices have reached almost INR 82 which will result in a lot of issues in our daily lives and the entire home budget has gone haywire.
The state government must consider revising the tax policies and ease the burden on the citizens.
While it is a good step that the centre has initiated creating oil reserves at the time when the international prices are low, however, it should also consider regulating consumer friendly oil prices. Government has to work towards price control across, including petrol and GST burden.
Annanya Kashyup, Student: This morning, I was upset on hearing about the increased petrol prices. The overall price rise is unacceptable. On one hand, where the government is presenting the statistics of inflation going down, the reality seems to be contradictory.
Rather than politicising unnecessary issues, the opposition and the centre should formulate policies to control price rise and ease the trouble faced by us daily.
Jagpreet Marwah, Sales manager: It is always we who suffer and will continue suffering. The prices of vegetables, petrol and CNG have been hiked overnight.
What are we expected to do? Leave our jobs and start farming?
Stop going to the office or start taking public transport and travel four hours a day? Then come back and eat milk and bread, oh yes, milk has also increased by the way.
There is no increase in our incomes, yet the expenditure keeps on increasing. It is really very frustrating.
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#All views expressed in the article are those of the respondents and Pune365 does not necessarily subscribe to them.
Reach her at loveleen@pune365.com or tweet @KaurKaur18
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