Patna:
After onion, now salt prices have hit the roof. The vital ingredient is selling at Rs 150 a kg in Bihar, parts of Bengal and the northeast, thanks to rumours of a salt shortage that have spurred panic buying.
Nine people were arrested in Bihar on Friday for allegedly spreading rumours of an acute shortage of salt, which pushed up prices to Rs.150 a kg within a day.
Salt normally sells for Rs.8-Rs.16 a kg, depending on its quality.
The panic-buying in Bihar has spread to parts of north Bengal where people were up till late last night queuing up for bags of salt. The rumours have even travelled to Meghalaya, where the government has launched a crackdown against hoarding.
Since Thursday, nine wholesalers and shopkeepers have been arrested in Bihar capital Patna for allegedly hoarding salt. The crisis added another layer to the running feud between Bihar's ruling Janata Dal-United and its former partner BJP, with Bihar's food minister Shyam Razak accusing the BIP of spreading the rumours to create an artificial crisis. The two parties ended their 17-year alliance in June after the BJP gave Narendra Modi a starring role in its campaign for next year's national elections.
"I have asked district authorities to lodge FIRs against the hoarders selling salt at rates above the maximum retail price," Mr Razak told IANS in Patna.
The Bihar government has appealed to people not to panic, assuring them that the state has enough stocks.
Officials and the police were alarmed on Thursday after reports that salt was being sold at exorbitant rates of Rs.50 to Rs.150 a kg in nearly a dozen districts due to "acute shortage".
"It is purely a rumour, nothing else. We have appealed to people not to purchase salt from the black market by paying four to ten times its original price," said Mr Razak.