‘Rice, 'sambar' are our staple, but we’ve switched to 'idlis' and 'dosas'’

Dal is not on Hema Noronha's menu every day. These days, the housewife from Mumbai is keeping her distance from tur (arhar) dal, which at Rs100 a kg, threatens to create a hole in her wallet. She's doing exactly what every other person in charge of putting together a meal for the family is being forced to do — cutting corners.

In the middle of a recession, salary cuts, lowered bonuses and poorly performing businesses, families have been handed another burden - a stunning rise in their monthly food bill. Across the country, people are struggling to buy some very expensive staples — dal, rice, flour, vegetables — the prices of which seem to rise every day.

And tur (arhar) dal is the story of this price rise. Noronha's family has not only cut down on eating out, her family has also adapted to life without arhar which used to sell at Rs65 a kg about three months back. "We have switched to masoor dal," she says. However, Noronha's been lucky in one respect: she stores rice for the entire year and thus the rising price of this foodgrain hasn't touched her, yet.

Dipika Mukherjee, a homemaker in Kolkata, echoes her sentiment. "I am buying less than I used to. I have cut down on fish and meat by a third over the last three months," she says.

Prices have gone up everywhere, though in varying degrees. Of course, there is the odd situation in Chennai where the price of onions came down from Rs20 to Rs15 per kilo over the past three months; on the other hand, in Kolkata, tomatoes doubled from Rs20 to Rs40 in the same period. Tur dal, a staple in most homes, has almost become out of reach, with the price in Bhubaneswar zooming by 80% from Rs52 to Rs90. Every increase of a rupee or two has had a cascading effect, wreaking havoc on budgets and diets.

"Rice, sambar and vegetables are our staple but we have now shifted to items such as idlis and dosas as they can be made using ration rice. This helps me keep a tab on the budget and reduce the impact of food prices," says Vijaylakshmi S, a housewife from Chennai.

It isn't just housewives who are worried. Grocers say business has been hit. "People who'd buy 5kg of dal per month now buy 2 to 3 kg. Our profit ratio has scaled down," says Benudhar Sahu, who runs a grocery shop in Bhubaneswar.

The rise in prices is being blamed on a couple of factors. "The poor monsoon and the hike in petrol and diesel prices have sent prices northward," says Ashok Kesarwani, owner of a provision store in Lucknow, "Earlier, most of my customers would buy provisions for the entire month but now they buy in three or four installments, perhaps as some sort of rationing."

While monsoons have revived in southern and central India, northern India is still reeling from deficit rainfall, which is likely to harm cultivation and crop output. Food may still get expensive. 
 —With bureau reports