The Price of Rice in Kalahandi
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In Kalahandi people talked of selling their paddy for Rs 200-300 per quintal. The official price was Rs 340/350 but only a few could get that. When they had to buy rice for consumption they had to buy it at Rs 360/kg. Government rice is offered through th e Public Distribution System (PDS) at Rs 2 per kg but this was rarely available. With the drought and forced price rise due to government bans on foodgrain movements and blackmarketeering, prices rose to Rs 5, Rs 7.5 and even Rs 10 per kg by the time we l eft.

What is striking about these prices is their overall low level. Rice is sold at Rs 9 to 10 on the open market in most parts of India and even in Bhubaneshwar. More important, farmers growing and selling paddy in other parts of India get much higher prices , both "officially" and actually. In Punjab, rice is officially bought at Rs 395-415 depending on the variety and the FCI was trying to keep prices at Rs 395 by classifying varieties as "fine" rather than "superfine" (Times of India, November 5, 1996). Pe ople I talked to in Maharashtra could hardly believe the Rs 200-300 per quintal offered in Kalahandi.4

The low price is compounded by low productivity: in 1989, productivity in Kalahandi was estimated at 12 quintals per hectare, compared to an average of 16.9 for India as a whole, a potential of 45-58 from high-yielding varieties, and an actual 67 from Kor ea at that time.5 In other words, both low prices and low productivity have lowered people's incomes, but low prices throughout the decades of Independence have deprived them of resources to invest in improving productivity. Paddy and "non-timber forest produce", also very underpaid, are the only products the people of Kalahandi have to sell. Out of these they buy whatever other consumer goods they need. But low prices and low wages mean they have very little with which to bu y. The government does not (cannot) control the prices of industrial and processed goods in the way it controls paddy and forest produce prices. So the people have very little purchasing power, and little money is available in Kalahandi communities to inv est in processing or rural industries of any kind. The low prices they have gotten for their labour and the wealth of their land for decades on end have left them helpless today in the face of drought and starvation.

Manushi, Issue 97

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