On September 1, 2016, Mukesh Ambani announced the tariffs of his new mobile network at the annual meeting of Reliance Industries. “Reliance Jio’s effective rates will be Rs 50 per GB,” Business Today reported.
The network launched on September 5, 2016, with free data and voice calls until December 31. The free period was later extended to March 31, 2017.
In 1969 Karsanbhai Patel began to sell a yellow detergent powder in Ahmedabad. He called it Nirma and sold it door to door from his bicycle. It cost 3.50 rupees per kilogram. Wikipedia gives the price of Hindustan Unilever’s Surf at the time as 13 rupees. The Better India gives 10 to 15 rupees.
“Within a decade, Nirma was the largest-selling detergent in India,” Business Today wrote. Its jingle, Sabki pasand Nirma, everyone’s favorite Nirma, first ran on radio in 1975.
In 1983 C.K. Ranganathan launched Chik shampoo in Tamil Nadu in small sachets. Business Standard gives the price as 50 paise a sachet. Madras Musings gives one rupee. According to Madras Musings, the established brand, Velvette, cost two rupees a sachet.
“Within a couple of years, Chik overtook Velvette and became the top shampoo brand in South India,” Madras Musings wrote.
India’s negotiating team for 36 Rafale fighter jets “held 74 meetings to discuss the Rafale deal between May, 2015 and April, 2016,” the government told the Supreme Court in 2018. Twenty-six of these meetings were with the French side. According to Swarajya, the French side quoted 8.6 billion euros in January 2016. The contract signed on September 23, 2016, was for 7.878 billion euros.
The size of the saving is disputed. The Comptroller and Auditor General found the deal 2.86 percent cheaper than the one negotiated under the earlier UPA government. Three experts on the negotiating team dissented. In their view, the price had not been shown to be reasonable.
Sarojini Nagar in New Delhi is a market for cheap clothes. A shopping guide on LBB, a Delhi city site, explains how prices work there: “500s, 350s and 250s quoted by the profiteering shopkeeper can all be brought down to a neatly rounded 150!”
In May 2024 Ankit Sawant posted on X: “Mom got a mini heart attack because she had to pay for dhaniya on Blinkit.” At a vegetable stall, a little coriander, dhaniya, often comes free. His mother suggested that the delivery app should bundle it free “with a certain amount of veggies.”
Blinkit’s chief executive, Albinder Dhindsa, replied that he would. Soon after he posted: “It’s live! Everyone, please thank Ankit’s mom.”
Packaged goods in India must carry a printed maximum retail price, the MRP. The government made it mandatory in 1990. Under Rule 18(2) of the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011, a seller may not charge more than the printed price. A seller may charge less.
“Retailers also enjoy the legal freedom to underprice a product, the government having fixed only the upper limit,” Outlook explained in 2022. Companies began quoting a lower market operating price as well, because “customers have always bargained on MRP and sought discounts.”
Auto-rickshaw meter fares in Bengaluru are fixed by the government. In June 2025 Karnataka’s transport minister, Ramalinga Reddy, ordered action against autos that “charge fares above the government-fixed rates.” His department had already “registered cases against auto drivers for refusing rides and demanding excess fares.” He wrote that “the permit of such autos should be cancelled and a case should be registered.”
Mol-tol. Bargaining, haggling, valuation, concession, in the Rekhta dictionary.
Mol-bhaav. To bargain, to make a bargain. Rekhta’s Hindi definition adds the talk that settles a deal and the fixing of a price.
In 1998 India’s Central Vigilance Commission banned post-tender negotiations in government purchasing “except with L.1.ie., the lowest tenderer.”
In March 2007 it narrowed the rule: “there should be no post-tender negotiations with L-1, except in certain exceptional situations.” The exceptions include proprietary items, items from limited sources and suspected cartels. The reasons must be recorded.