Half-hearted measures won't contain inflation: Left

New Delhi Feb 15: Charging the Manmohan Singh government with taking ''half-hearted'' measures to contain inflation, the Left parties today made out a strong case for urgent ''drastic initiatives'' to check the trend.

While taking note of the Centre's decision to reduce the prices of petrol and diesel and impose a complete ban on wheat exports, they refused to buy the government theory that inflation was a consequence of rapid growth and quoted the Chinese growth rate of the past three decades which was able to keep the inflation at just two per cent.

While the Whole Sale Price Index during the period of an year till February 3 was higher than the previous week's annual increase of 6.58 per cent, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade in the Commerce Ministry notified a ban on export of all varieties of wheat, including Durum and seed till the end of this year.

Top left leaders, while talking to sources, pointed out that in the past some weeks, the prices of flour, pulses, vegetables and edible oils had shot up further. While the price of wheat did not show any downslide, the price of onion alone had gone up in the last two weeks from Rs 16 to 26 per Kg.

CPI leaders A B Bardhan and Shamim Faizi suggested that if the government was serious about checking the price rise it should allow forward trading, which in turn would ensure remunerative prices for agricultural produce at appropriate time and strengthening the Public Distribution System (PDS).

''The government is taking measures that do not have a direct bearing on the price situation. In three months it has raised Cash Reserve Ratio, but failed to effectively check hoarding of essential commodities.'' The CPI(M), in an editorial in party weekly 'People's Democracy', said, ''The wrong policies of the government and the management led to shortage of supply and price rise of many commodities. The world prices of sugar have declined sharply, but the retail prices of sugar in the country continues to climb.'' The ''fiasco'' of wheat imports last year underlined the failure to procure adequate amounts of wheat from farmers becuase private players were being allowed to corner stocks, the CPI(M) said adding the government had failed to check the overall slow down in agricultural production.

Forward Bloc National Secretary G Devrajan alleged an ''artificial scarcity'' of essential commodities was being used as a plea for the price hike. ''It can be met by ensuring supply through the Public Distribution System outlets.'' ''What the government is doing is to release extra stock in the open market that is cornered by the hoarders. If the government has to check inflation, it has to take drastic measures like the fixing of maximum stock limit, so that hoarding should be checked,'' he said.

On the government move to reduce the prices of petrol and diesel, the CPI leaders said the government had ''only partially'' met the Left demands as the international prices of crude had already plunged.

''The Left still feel that the government should restructure the price mechanism at zero level. Similarily the state governments should reduce the Sales tax and other taxes to further bring down the prices,'' he added.

The CPI(M) also accused the government of ''systematically weakening'' the PDS, giving incentives to farmers for switching from foodgrains to cash crops among other things, which has led to a delcine in food production.

Besides, in the last Budget the government announced a subsidy cut of Rs 3000 crore in the food sector, the CPI(M) said, adding that the situation was further accentuated when cuts in import duties on cement, capital goods, project imports, metals and chemicals were announced in January. ''This was a wrong step.'' Similiar cuts in import duty on wheat and pulses did not succeed in bringing down inflation, the left leaders added.

UNI