High food prices getting awful

Rawalpindi : The budget-friendly appeal of basic food is fading fast. Food in Pakistan is more expensive today than in the past. Food is the necessity of life and the citizens work hard for it. Every living thing consumes to form energy and that energy is used in work. Just imagine your prospect dish and the ingredients required being ridiculously expensive.

“These are the most difficult days to go grocery shopping. Bigger price tags are incomprehensible. The price of all food has risen such as vegetables, fruits, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, eggs, sugar, rice, flour, edible oil, lentil, chicken and other meat, etc.,” says Sehris Zaidi.

“A visit to the grocery store has become more of a budget burner these days. Prices of food items have skyrocketed. However, this is not just a natural economic shift. The price hikes are here to stay, and the stats are making us nervous,” adds Sehrish.

“Both kinds of foods, the takeaway from restaurants and foods bought at grocery stores have become now a luxury. Denizens see constant pressure on food prices for the near future. Is the price of food a symptom of an underlying economic crisis? Nobody knows,” says Samar Ali.

“The state of the economy and the corrective measures undertaken to fix it are what distressed the common man the most because that had the most direct and harmful impact on them,” adds Samar.

“The devaluation of the rupee in a sudden and bellicose style results in input costs going through the ceiling leading to record price increases. Family units can cut down their expenditures, tighten up their belts but when it comes to the essentials, main food items, for instance, there is not much that can be done,” says Hasan Abbas.

“A part of the climb in prices is related to seasonal effect and a part is due to supply channel problem. Nevertheless, a grave food affordability problem has now set in. The government has made an effort to give some relief by placing price controls in the markets but that effort can’t provide the help, which the denizens are looking for, because of hoarders and profiteers,” adds Hasan.

“The government also needs to crack down on hoarders looking to make a quick profit. But it needs to do more to arrange for relief, as a maximum of this trouble for the common man is the result of the city administration’s indifferent attitude that has created price rises resulting in people’s sufferings,” says Nuzhat Hussain.

Ashiq Hussain says, “The city administration, just asking the officials to enforce government prices is not enough. The issue is that no immediate resolution for food price hikes is visible. Until the city administration wakes up, unfortunately, the citizens have to continue trudging uphill, emptying their pockets along the way”.