The health crisis and the ill fated relationship of unemployment, financial predicament and the surging inflation is taking toll on not only the country but has also become a worldwide phenomena. The growing rate of inflation in the country is adding to the country’s economic woes, this could lead to a major problem in the near future as it might also affect the daily essential commodities. In May, consumer prices rose 5% from a year earlier, the largest such year-over-year jump since 2008.
“The second wave of Covid-19 has altered the near-term outlook, and policy support from all sides — fiscal, monetary and sectoral is required to nurture recovery and expedite return to normalcy,” Governor Shaktikanta Das was cited as saying in the minutes of a meeting show. “The dent on economic activity due to the second wave of the virus has necessitated the continuation of monetary measures to support the process of economic recovery to make it durable.”
The ever increasing the price of fuels is even more concerning, on June 13, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas and Steel Dharmendra Pradhan said fuel prices cannot be brought down because the government is saving money to spend on welfare schemes.
“I accept that current fuel prices are problematic for people but be it central/state government, over Rs 35,000 crore have been spent on vaccines in a year,” said Pradhan while speaking to media persons. “In such dire times, we are saving money to spend on welfare schemes.” He added, “Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved Rs 1 lakh crore under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana scheme to give free food grain to the poor for eight months,” he said. “Under PM-Kisan, thousands of crores have been directly deposited in the bank accounts of our farmers. The minimum support price was hiked recently. And all this is happening in the current year.”
Meanwhile, amid this extreme crunch, a new claim is going viral over the internet. As per the claim, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is accussed of spending Rs 100 crores on his food in the last seven years of his tenure. According to the claim, the information is received from RTI, and the money used is from the government treasury.
A Facebook user, shared a post with a cartoon sketch, with the caption in Hindi which when translated reads, “Tell me, the inflation has increased so much that a man alone ate food worth 100 crores in 7 years. Nobody got to know”.
This image went viral questioning the governance of the PM. As per the claims, the information was shared by RTI, but if such thing were true then it would have caused a huge ruckus. While going through PM’s official website, pmindia.gov.in, there were a few links where the RTI replied. Many queries rehgarding the same have been answered by the RTI and uploaded there.
Back in 2015, one such RTI was uploaded in which the information about PM Modi’s kitchen expenditure was sought. In its response, it was told that PM Modi himself bears the cost of his kitchen expenses, and it has no record in the government’s account whatsoever. This reply can be accessed on page number 3 of RTI. In reply to the query on expenses of spices and vegetables also, it gives the same answer. The reply says that expenditure on the groceries bought for PM Modi comes under the purview of his personal spending and not the expense of the Government of India.
Modi himself bears the expenditure of his food and kitchen expenses and it is not burdened on the government’s account. Moreover, RTI has not shared any intelligence. Thus, false information is spread to mislead the crowd amid the growing inflation to enrage the crowd.
