FM Nirmala Sitharaman buys vegetables in Chennai amid inflation

New Delhi: Nirmala Sitharaman, a senior BJP leader and Union Finance Minister, spent a busy day in Chennai, Tamil Nadu's capital, from morning to night on Saturday. Nirmala, who had completed all of her programmes on time, stopped at the Mylapore market in the night city. She spoke to the vegetable traders at the market on this occasion. They inquired about the difficulties they were experiencing.

She later stopped at a vegetable store and purchased vegetables. Nirmala took a basket and went vegetable shopping. On social media, people are commenting on the video of the Union Minister stopping at the vegetable market and buying vegetables.

Inflation in India has been on the rise consistently for the past several months and various reasons can be attributed to it such as soaring food and oil prices, among others. However, most importantly, the sharply depreciating rupee against the dollar is one of the most significant reasons behind it. Vegetable and Fruit prices are shooting up in many parts across the country in the past few days because of excessive rain and high transportation cost. It is disturbing the budget of common man, making them to decrease the consumption on other things.

India`s retail inflation rose to 7 per cent in August from 6.71 per cent in July and this was due to higher food prices. In fact, retail inflation has been beyond the Reserve Bank of India`s (RBI) tolerance limit of 6 per cent for eight months in a row. 

A rise in food prices has led to a spike in retail inflation and this is evident from the fact that inflation in food basket was 7.62 per cent in August, up from 6.69 per cent in July and more than double from 3.11 per cent in August 2021.

Finance Minister had come to Chennai to inaugrate ‘Ananda Karuna Vidhyalayam’ - a multi-disciplinary centre for children with special needs at Kallikuppam, Ambattur, Chennai in Tamil Nadu. Anandam Learning Centre was started in 2018 for children with learning difficulties such as autism, dyslexia, slow learning disability and especially caters to those families who cannot afford specialised care.