A couple in their forties, Santosh Dhiman and Savita Dhiman, are waiting outside their home in Mhow, a town close to Indore city in Madhya Pradesh. A man riding a motorcycle arrives with three gas cylinders strapped to the pillion seat. “The cylinder now costs Rs 950,” says Savita as she helps the man unload the cylinder. “Ration like rice, dal, oil adds up to an expense of nearly Rs 5000 every month in our household,” Savita says.
Savita is a homemaker and her husband Santosh earns Rs 12,000 every month working as an electrician. But when they could not keep up with rising electricity and ration prices, their younger son Mayank, 14, dropped out of high school to work at a mobile accessories shop in the town.
