India, May 24 -- Bijaylaxmi Das, a housewife in Bhubaneswar is worried about the long heatwave this summer that is making her family's life miserable. What worries her more these days is the rising prices of vegetables, chicken and pulses that are threatening to dent her household budget. Last week, Das had a bitter argument with her neighbourhood chicken seller when he demanded Rs.300 per kg, a steep hike from Rs.240 that she had bought a week before that.

With prices of vegetables such as potatoes rising by 60 % in less than a month, housewives like Das are feeling the pinch like most people in Odisha where the inflation rate in the consumer price index, the measure of the yearly rise in inflation in food articles, beverages, manufactu...