Hyderabad:
With rice prices soaring, the demand for Hyderabadi’s staple food item is
dipping. Grocery store owners say the demand for rice has gone down
significantly .
“Earlier while we would keep 2-3 varieties of rice,
now we have restricted it to mere one, as the procurement cost is high and there
is not much margin for profit . Even the demand has gone down by 50 per cent due
to prices escalating high,” says a grocery store owner in Sindhi Colony.
Rice retailers point out that Sona Masuri, which they earlier
procured for Rs 18 to Rs 19, is now available at Rs 25 and that they have to
sell it for Rs 28, says a retailer in Sindhi Colony. He says selling rice at the
rate prescribed by the government is not possible , and they are forced to sell
surreptitiously to customers at a higher price.
The price of the
cheapest variety “tukda rice” has shot from Rs 9 to Rs 15 as a large part of the
supply of this variety is procured by the government to sell at fair price shops
for Rs 2 a kg and there is little left for its sale in the market . Sona masoori
regular which was earlier available for Rs 20 to Rs 22 per kg has now shot to Rs
28. Sona masoori premium which ranged from 24-26 per kg can now be availed only
after shelling Rs 32 per kg. Eating Jeera rice and Basmati Kohinoor would be no
less than a luxury now with their prices making an almost 40 per cent jump.
Rice eaters in the city are complaining about the adjustments they
are now being forced to make. Alivelu Atmakuri, a homemaker , says it pains when
adjustments have to be made in the staple food item. “Rice is part of daily diet
and cannot be left out even if the prices are soaring and we cannot adjust by
compromising on quality drastically too. So, the budget suffers.” Local
businessman P Venkatesh Babu adds that compromising on quality is not the best
option. “We try to make up a little by buying in bulk.” While the city procures
most of its rice from Mirayalguda , now some varieties of rice are being
procured from East and West Godavari as well. “The civil supplies department is
supplying rice Rs 18 per kg variety to kirana stores but that can be bought only
up to 5 kg by ration card holders ,” says a rice retailer.
There is
another subsidized variety of rice available with stores, but they say there are
few takers “since the minimum purchase for the subsidized rice is 10 kg,” says a
store owner.
“Moreover, not many people are showing interest in
buying this quality as it gets sticky after cooking and we do not provide any
guarantee for it,” the retailer adds.

TRENTON, N.J. – Finally, a bit of good healthcare news: US prices for generic prescription drugs, which already cost as little as one-third of what their brand-name cousins do, have been getting cheaper and are likely to keep doing so.
The causes? Ultralow prices for generics offered by giant retailers and drugstore chains and intense competition as generic drug makers fight for sales, according to the health information firm
.
Pricing pressures forced down sales of generic drugs in the United States 2.7 percent in the year ended in September, even though the number of generic prescriptions filled increased 5.4 percent, IMS reported.
Murray Aitken, a senior vice president at IMS, said the competition is particularly intense for drugs that had been brand-name blockbusters – recent examples include osteoporosis drug Fosamax and cholesterol fighter Zocor – where “there can be as many as 20 generic manufacturers competing for [market] share.”
In 2006, discounter
, followed by
, began offering a large number of popular generics for just $4 or $5 per month, passing on their savings from buying in large volume as a strategy to attract more shoppers.
Other major retailers with in-store pharmacies and even drugstore chains have followed suit, with some now offering generic drugs for as little as $10 for a three-month supply.
“It’s a very good story for the healthcare system,” Aitken said.

Ask AP: Building windmills, seized drugs prices
Windmills don’t just sprout from the earth wherever there’s a stiff breeze. Curiosity about where windmills in the U.S. are manufactured — and how the massive contraptions get to the sites where they’re installed — inspired one of three questions in this edition of “Ask AP,” a weekly Q&A column where AP journalists respond to readers’ questions about the news.
If you have your own news-related question that you’d like to see answered by an AP reporter or editor, send it to
, with “Ask AP” in the subject line. And please include your full name and hometown so they can be published with your question.
Whenever police make a drug bust, they always assign a dollar value to the captured stash. How do the authorities know the value of an illegal drug? Pot and cocaine don’t have price stickers, do they? And don’t the values fluctuate depending on scarcity?
Mount Wolf, Pa.
Law enforcement authorities use their own knowledge of the market to assign “street” values to drugs they seize. For one thing, they are often involved in making the purchases as part of undercover investigations. Informants also tell them how much drugs are selling for.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration keeps regional statistics for each quarter on cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other drugs being sold in different parts of the country. In Miami, for example, prices of marijuana are between $2,500 and $4,000 per pound. The DEA takes the lower-middle road and places a “street” value of about $3,000 per pound on pot. The same concept applies to other drugs.
On a recent trip through eastern Oregon, we saw hundreds of new windmills generating electricity. Where are windmills like these manufactured? How are they shipped to their sites? And what does a windmill cost?
Portland, Ore.
Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world’s largest wind turbine maker, has its North American headquarters based right there in your home city of Portland. Vestas manufactures its blades at a plant in Windsor, Colo., and the company recently picked Pueblo, Colo., as its site to build the towers.
GE Energy, part of General Electric Co., builds turbines at a manufacturing and assembly facility in Tehachapi, Calif., and buys blades from multiple suppliers. Spanish company Gamesa Corporacion Tecnologica SA operates a blade manufacturing plant in Fairless Hills, Pa., Germany-based Siemens AG last year opened a blade plant in Fort Madison, Iowa, and Mitsubishi Power Systems Inc. christened a new blade and vane manufacturing center this summer in Orlando, Fla.
Turbines and blades are typically delivered to sites by truck, which is quite a sight to see. You don’t truly realize how large these things are until you pass wind tower sections on a highway. I often see them heading south on Interstate 29 here in South Dakota.
Although large commercial wind turbines can cost several million dollars apiece, you can buy a small wind turbine for a home or farm for $6,000 to $22,000 installed, according to the American Wind Energy Association’s Web site.
Sioux Falls, S.D.
Does the U.S. still have troops in Bosnia? If not, when were they withdrawn?
The last 150 U.S. troops left Bosnia in 2007, although a handful of Americans — mostly intelligence officers — remain at a NATO base near Sarajevo, the capital. They’re mostly focused on the search for war crimes suspects and on efforts to integrate the Bosnian army into the Western military alliance.
The U.S. had about 15,000 soldiers deployed among the 60,000-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force as of 1995, when a peace agreement ended the Bosnian war. The number of troops in Bosnia gradually declined until 2004, when a European policing force took over from NATO.
Belgrade, Serbia
Have questions of your own? Send them to newsquestions@ap.org.