Take immediate steps to curb price hike: Karat

Hyderabad, Feb 11: Communist Party of India (CPI-M) General Secretary Prakash Karat today said the government should take immediate measures to curb the hike in the prices of essential commodities in the country.

Addressing a press conference here, he said the government was not taking any measures to control the alarming rise in prices despite repeated demands from the party.

The CPI-M Politbureau would meet on February 17 and 18 and discuss the issue, including launching agitation programmes, to protest the hike in the prices.

He said the government should not allow futures trading on certain essential commodities as it would lead to hoarding and blackmarketing.

Though sugar prices all over the world had crashed, the retail prices in the country were increasing. Though the government was talking about economic growth, inflation touched five per cent leading to price increase.

The govenrment cannot blame the price hike on lack of supply. He also said prices of petrol and diesel should be reduced immeddiately.

The recent reduction of Rs two on petrol and Re one on diesel would was not sufficient.

UNI