by Ariba Khaliq

Workers from the countryside have flocked to New Delhi to help the city get ready for this years Commonwealth Games, which are similar to the Olympics.

But laborers complain that even though theres plenty of work, rising inflation crimps their food budgets, among other things. In July 2008, Indias wholesale price index rose more than 11 percent -- its highest rate in 13 years, the government said. That number was a more than 6 percent spike over the previous year and almost three times the indexs target rate of 4.1 percent. The index is one measure of the countrys inflation rate.

“In the 50 years that I have been through, I have never seen potatoes cost 20 rupees (40 cents) a kilogram,” said Deenanath Verma, 50, a security guard at a construction site.

Vermas not the only one feeling the pinch. With the price of sugar going up as high as 80 cents per kilogram and rice selling for up to 60 cents per kilogram, the poor are struggling to save, economists say.

“I am becoming self-reliant. This is my development. But if I want to have arhar daal (a common bean dish) at lunch today, I can’t have it because it costs 85 rupees ($1.80) per kilogram,” says Kawlesh Singh, 24, a laborer.

At the same time, the unemployment rate has fallen in recent years and workers are making more money. The rate was 6.8 percent in 2009, according to government statistics, down from 7.8 percent in 2009.

“I used to pull rickshaws before this in Rohtak but I couldn’t manage to earn 200 rupees (about $4.30) per day as I do here," says Nandu Lal, 30, who works at a road construction site in East Delhi. "It has been three months, and now I can send sufficient money to my family in Bihar.”

Verma now gets paid about $2.50 for a 12-hour shift as a security guard. He says thats far more than he used to make at a job in Naraina, an industrial area on the outskirts of the capital.

Government officials have promised to take steps to curb inflation but food prices have not dropped, critics say.

At the same time, many laborers are sending their children to private schools with the additional money theyre making. Supervisor Sagir Ansari, 35, recently was able to enroll his son at a private school on his salary of about $2.50 per hour, for example.

Thousands of families migrated from the suburbs to the capital to work on the new infrastructure projects, according to government statistics. About 14 million people live in New Delhi, nearly one-third of them immigrants from the neighboring regions of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, 2008 census data indicate.