MPs flay Govt for soaring prices

New Delhi, July 27 (UNI) Members in the Lok Sabha today took the government to task for its failure to control the prices of essential commodities and blamed its policy of procurement of foodgrains for the spiralling prices.

Initiating discussion on rise in prices of essential commodities, Deputy leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party in the Lok Sabha V K Malhotra said the common man felt miserable due to the rising prices of essential commodities and if the Government was incapable of arresting the price rise, then it must go.

To drive home his point, Prof Malhotra showed clippings of various newspapers and read out the headlines which were critical of the UPA government for its failure to check prices. He claimed that price rise was never a subject of debate in Parliament during the NDA regime.

He recalled that the FCI godowns during the NDA regime were full to the brim, so much so that the Government had offered the states to take away their requirement of foodgrains free from the godowns to be used in Food for Work programme. At one point of time, the Government had even offered to bear the cost of transportation of foodgrains from the godown when some states had pleaded their inability to bear the transportation cost.

Mr Malhotra gave a break up of the prices of rice, sugar, wheat, pulses, tea and other commodities which he said had registered an increase of 200 to 300 per cent during the last few months. This was an unprecedented rise, he said adding the prices of luxury items like refrigerators, cars, AC and liquor on the other had shown a downward trend.

The BJP leader said the prices of petrol and diesel were increased seven times during the UPA regime but this should not affect the revenue of the Government which earned Rs 60,000 crores through excise on petrol. He wondered why India had to increase the petrol prices so frequently when smaller countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh could keep the prices under check.

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