INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
NEW DELHI: What was for breakfast today: North India, South India or an English platter If you take your breakfast seriously, then this
minimum support prices (MSP) of crops
For sugar, MSP has already been raised.
In the Union Budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had promised to lift MSPs to 1.5 times the cost
of produce for foodgrains, which almost immediately put an inflation-fighting RBI on the back foot
It was cautious thus far; but on Wednesday, it took pre-emptive action.
Now, this spectre of MSP is going to come visiting you right at the
breakfast table.
Brokerage JM Financial has calculated that the hit will be more on those who love South Indian food, compared with people
the North Indian breakfast palate may not see much of a price change, as MSP hikes for wheat and chana dal are expected to be in mid-single
digits, the brokerage said.
Price inflation for each breakfast type depends not just on seasonal fluctuations in prices of key ingredients
such as onion or potato (in case of parantha) or egg
It also depends on fluctuation in prices of other ingredients.
Given the wide price fluctuations and high inflation rates for onions,
breakfast items with onions as an ingredient (need not necessarily be the key ingredient) tend to exhibit similar fluctuations in inflation
Even though the key ingredient of idli served with sambhar and coconut chutney are pulses (arhar, urad) and rice, the recent uptick in
coconut prices has changed the focus of inflation for an idli breakfast from arhar or urad dal to coconut prices, the brokerage said.
Choice
single digits) in inflation in April on a YoY basis
For Idli and upma, it was low in single digits.
On a slightly longer trend, upma, poha, plain omelette (with bread and butter) experienced
lower price volatility than more popular onion parantha and idli, owing to higher volatility in vegetable prices.
Breakfast items with least
fluctuations in inflation rates over the past three years have been poha (average standard deviation (SD) across beverages at 1.8), plain
omelette with bread and butter (SD of 2.0) and upma (SD of 2.7).
On the other hand, onion parantha (SD: 16.1), idli (SD: 6.6) and aloo
parantha (SD: 5.4) have witnessed wide fluctuations in inflation rate, the brokerage said.
At April prices, breakfast items (inclusive of a
beverage) experiencing the lowest inflation rates include upma (1.3 per cent YoY) and idli (2.9% YoY)
On the other hand, onion/aloo parantha (8.9 per cent/7.3 per cent YoY) and onion tomato omelette with bread and butter (4.7 per cent YoY)
witnessed the sharpest price increases on a year-on-year basis.
While countries such as the US and China regularly update their CPI basket,
CPI weights in India are determined using average monthly consumption expenditure of an urban/rural household obtained from the 68th round
of the NSS Consumer Expenditure Survey 2011-12
Urban breakfast items such as cornflakes and health food drinks such as Bournvita and Horlicks have not been included in the CPI basket so
far.
It would be interesting to watch out for changes in weights and items of the Indian CPI basket after the next Consumer Expenditure
Survey (quinquennial) to get a sense of the dietary changes for a typical household.
