Oppn to raise price rise, agrarian crisis in Parliament

New Delhi, Feb 24 (UNI) Opposition parties will raise the issues of price rise, agrarian crisis affecting the rural areas and lop-sided development in the country in the Budget Session of Parliament beginning tomorrow.

This was today conveyed to Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee in a formal meeting by Parliamentary party leaders belonging to the NDA.

They conveyed to the Speaker that a thorough discussion should be held on pressing matters like the rising prices of food and essential commodities, adversely affecting the poor people as also deteriorating economic conditions of the farming sector.

The agrarian crisis along with erosion of country's self-sufficiency in cereal production and pauperising of a vast chunk of population in villages should be discussed threadbare, they told the Speaker.

Other matters likely to be raked up in the coming session will be India's nuclear deal with the US, 'shoddy implementation' of welfare schemes in rural areas like that of National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and large scale diversion of foodstock under Public Distribution Scheme (PDS) to private markets thereby denying the BPL families their due.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) Parliamentary Party leader Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa told UNI that his party would like to raise the issue of creating a separate Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) for Haryana by bifurcating the present Amritsar-based SGPC enacted by an Act of Parliament in 1925.

The Akalis would also raise the issue of extending for another three years the Central tax relief for Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand which led to the flight of Punjab's industry as well as capital to these neighbouring states.

UNI JSS MSJ LR KP1512