Malik Sajid
From quiet long time, the negative phenomenon of ever rising inflation is badly impacting the life of general public in the Valley of Kashmir. The monster of inflation is almost adversely impacting each and every sphere of life in Kashmir. For those who are unaware about this phenomenon Inflation means paying more for goods than what you were paying earlier. Off late, not only essential goods have seen a price hike, non-essential items have also seen this hike. In other words inflation is making a big hole in the pocket of common man in the valley. The shoddier part of it is that rising food prices have far outstripped the growth rate and overall income rise of masses. The prices of all the basic commodities are showing abnormal uptrend. Peas, Bread, Potatoes, onions, eggs and many types of pulses are costing twice as costly as they were about a year or two ago. This hyper inflation in Kashmir has hit the ordinary man the most. In order to deal with inflation, Middle income group have cut back consumption wherever possible, and are shifting to buying cheaper products .With basic food items eating up more of their incomes their saving is likely to disappear altogether. The devil of inflation has hit other parts of country as well. But in Kashmir it seems to have hit with much force. One cannot undermine the fact that phenomenon of inflation always hurts basic standard of living and badly hit is the man on street. If your income increases at a slower rate as compared to inflation, your standard of living declines even if you are making more. Every sane voice is urging upon the concerned authorities to tackle more seriously the challenges posed by the inflation and draft a futurist mechanism to tackle this evil of inflation as soon as possible.