Will food inflation follow the steep hike seen in petroleum product prices? It stood at 5.26 percent in May as against 4.78 percent in April and 5.88 percent in May last year.

Siraj Hussain, former agriculture secretary, while talking about steps taken by the government to ensure that the commodity prices do not run much higher, especially for the consumers, said that people can live with the petroleum inflation but not with food.

Speaking in an interview with CNBC-TV18, he said, “The government is concerned about food inflation because people can live with the inflation in petroleum products but not with food.”

“A huge population of our country has seen extreme distress over the last one-and-a-half year due to COVID lockdown, so the government has shown sensitivity. It’s not an unexpected or incorrect decision,” said Hussain.

On sowing, he said, “The monsoon does not go according to the prediction. So far I do not think there is any serious reason for concern about the progress of the monsoon and even in northwest India, the monsoon has finally reached. So I do not think we should be too much concerned as far as sowing is concerned. We will catch up if the monsoon turns out to be normal in the next two-three weeks.”

For the entire interview, watch the video

(Edited by : Abhishek Jha)