Govt not done enough to check price rise: Left, NDA

New Delhi, Apr 17 (UNI) The government today faced the wrath of both the opposition NDA and left parties on the price rise issue as they walked out of the Rajya Sabha expressing their dissatisfaction over the steps taken to contain inflation and check future trading of essential commodities.

Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar while replying to a Short Duration Discussion on price rise, enumerated the steps taken by the government to check the rising price of essential commodities.

Regarding the members demand to stop future trading in the essential commodities, he said that the government was awaiting the report of the Abhijeet Sen Committee on the issue before taking a final decision.

He, however, said if the report awaited for over past 12 months was not received soon he would call a meeting of members having definite view on the issue to take a decision on the matter.

Mr Pawar said due to diverse opinion on the matter, caution must be exercised before deciding the issue. It should not happen that in the name of inflation the messenger (FMC) was killed as earlier experience of stopping future trading of wheat, rice, pigeon pea and urad dal has shown that the price of wheat stabilised but no impact was felt on pigeon pea price while urad dal price came down.

However, Mr Sitaram Yechury of CPI(M) pointed out that future trading of 3 billion dollars was going on, so the government must take immediate steps to ban it. This was supported by Ms Brinda Karat and other MPs of her party. But Mr D Raja of CPI and BJP leader S S Ahluwalia charged the minister of trying to deflect the issue of inflation by using data.

''We are not satisfied with your reply,'' they said and walked out.

Earlier, Mr Pawar said he has urged the Prime Minister to call a meeting of Chief Ministers to emphasise the point that they need to take strict action against black marketeers and hoarders to check the inflation.

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