create and submit a project status report for your personal project. •You may us
ID: 406193 • Letter: C
Question
create and submit a project status report for your personal project. •You may use the standard sample/template project status report provided by your instructor. Or, if your organization has a standard template for a project status report you may use it as an alternate format. •Feel free to modify the format of your project status report as you deem necessary. •Your final deliverable should be either a MS WORD document or a .pdf file. •Submit your document to the instructor via Canvas Requirements Your status report should include (but is not limited to) the following items/sections: •The name of the project, date of status report, time period covered (week/month) •A summary percent complete for the overall project •A “dashboard” showing any areas of concern •A description stating WHY the areas of concern are flagged •Work completed prior period, Work planned for next period •Any open issues requiring attention/resolution •Status of specific deliverables/milestones •Status of project change requests •Summary key metrics
Explanation / Answer
Answer:
The synopsis of the project is:
Introduction
Inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time. When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Inflation – the dreaded economic phenomenon that has the power to shake up even the most powerful governments of the world has been a usual problem that Indians have dealt with. The problem becomes even more acute when inflation affects the basic human consumption need – food.
Food inflation can be defined as a consistent rise in the price level of all agricultural food items. That means, consumers are now paying more for inflated food prices. In other words, if a monthly grocery budget for any household was $8,000 two years ago, they are now likely paying closer to $10,000 plus, buying exactly the same products.
Causes of food inflation:
* Due to lack of post harvesting infrastructure such as cold chains, transportation, and storage facilities.
* High food inflation ensures that consumers have to cut back on their spending power or reduce their purchase capacity.
* 60% of the country's total cropped area is not irrigated.
* Bad monsoon in India.
* In Recession times, spending power of the consumers decreases.
* Shortage of supply in food items and high procurement prices.
* Black marketers activities should be stopped.
Measuring inflation:
Inflation is measured by comparing two sets of goods at two points in time and computing the increase in cost not reflected by an increase in quality. It can be measured by using:
A) Wholesale Price Index (WPI)
B) Commodity Price Index (CPI)
Economists say that India should adopt CPI for inflation calculation as it is the one that shows price rise that end consumers would experience rather than from wholesale side.
Indian Government has recently announced discontinuing releasing weekly primary and food inflation data based on the Wholesale Price Index as the figures were not portraying the "holistic" picture of the price situation.
Besides from this month (February, 2012), the government will also come out with a retail inflation data based on the all-India Consumer Price Index.
Inflation rate in India is 6.55% in January 2012 based on 2004-05 as the base year. The prices of vegetables, milks, fruits and other staples have risen even faster in the past two years (2010 and 2011), food price index shows they jumped almost 17% last financial year.
In the past two years, whole sale prices of food have risen by nearly 40% and retail prices have gone up even faster. In spite of robust monsoons and bumper crop, prices of food items are artificially high- the following table describes it all:
Fig1: Changes in the price of vegetables in the past two years
Trend of rate of food inflation:
Fig 2: Trend of rate of inflation for some important food items during the last six months
Purpose of Study
The purpose of this research is to study the impact of food inflation on the consumption pattern of Indian households. Further, this study will help us in analyzing how food inflation has affected the households of low income group, medium income group (service class) and high income group (Business man, CEOs and high salaried employees) of India.
Importance of the Study
Food inflation affects a large number of people of India as roughly 50% of consumer expenditure of poor is done on food. As essential food items such as vegetables, fruits, milk etc has an inelastic demand, it is important to understand how this affects the common man and their consumption pattern. This may adversely affect the investment or savings done by people and thereby, growth and development of the country. Therefore, it is important to analyze the impact of food inflation on Indian households and how this affects the poor, middle and rich class.
Scope of the Study
This project will help in analyzing the impact of food inflation on Indian households that are in urban areas (rural areas of India are not taken into consideration) and this will include all the three sections of society- high, medium and low income group. However, this study will be confined to three food items- vegetables, fruits and milk and how the food inflation has impacted the consumption pattern of these food items. Research will be done on Jaipur households.
Review of Literature
Several studies have concerned on price indices for specific income as well as demographic groups, including the poor. These studies have examined the impacts of consumption on low-income population and applied different price indices for the poor.
Snyder (1961) developed experimental price indices for subpopulations, i.e. low and high income groups in the United States by using the data of expenditures, incomes, and price level ranging
from 1936 to 1955. Her study defined population groups in terms of their incomes and the income
elasticities of food commodities (i.e. negative or zero elasticity for low-income groups, and the highest income elasticities for high-income groups). The study found that Laspeyres CPI indices for low income groups were significantly larger than the higher income groups. In addition, she reported than in a recession period, the prices of basic commodities, as considered to be of the greater importance to low-income groups, declined more slowly relative to the price of commodities which are most important to middle and high income groups.”
According to a Special report on ‘Food Prices and Inflation in Developing Asia- March 2011’ prepared by a team led by William E. James, “The effects of rising food prices will differ across households. There will be some households that may benefit from higher prices; there may be households that are adversely affected. Rising food prices may lead to income gains for net producers and people who sell the food items. However, to the extent that net surplus producers tend to be the relatively well-off, rising food prices may be expected to adversely affect even the rural poor. Certainly the urban poor, who are food consumers and unlikely to be food producers, can be expected to suffer the most from rising food prices.”
However, some of the economists do not agree to the fact that food inflation has affected the poor section more than the other sections of the society. According to them, Government provides them reasonable food with high quality at subsidized rates through ration shops and the most impacted section is middle class.
In this context, it is important to examine how different groups will be affected by rising food prices. It is also important to investigate what would be the net impact of food price increases on poverty. Concerns over high prices are mounting because inflation eats into real incomes and expenditures and can undermine the gains from poverty reduction and human development that developing countries have achieved over the last decade or so.
Objectives of the Study
The main objective of the study is to analyze how the increase in prices of vegetables, fruits and milk affects the Indian households. Besides this we will also come up with the key findings on how food inflation has affected the consumption pattern of various sections of society. In other words, the objective of this study is to find out how food inflation affects the common man and whether this has increased the living standard of people.
Hypothesis
Food Inflation does not affect the consumption pattern of Indian households.
Research Design
The research methodology used will be Causal Research. To test Hypothesis, Correlation and Regression tool will be used.
Sample Design
For the research work, a sample size of 90 people (30 each for low, medium and high income group) will be taken which will help us to understand how food inflation has affected the consumption pattern of Indian households.
Data Collection Methods
In this research, the primary data will be collected by the responses of Questionnaire and the secondary data from the various sources such as Economic Times, Government of India (Ministry of Commerce and Industry), Books, Internet and Articles will be taken to understand the impact of food inflation on Indian households.
Bibliography
1. Dr. Yasmeen K. Aowte. (2011). Food inflation in India- Where is the prices heading? International Journal of Research in Commerce, Economics and Management
2. Government of India Ministry of Commerce & Industry office of the economic adviser review report for month of January, 2012
3. Research Papers of oppapers.com
4. Economic times and Times of India Articles
5. Retail Prices Information System, Report generated by Directorate of Economics and Statistics
6. www.eurojournal.com
7. Leslie McGranahan. (October 2008). Food inflation and the consumption patterns of U.S. households.
8. www.google.com
9. Wikipedia and encyclopedia
10. Various online study materials related to food inflation.
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