Inflation to come down within 6-8 weeks: Ashwani Kumar

Jalandhar, May 9 (UNI) Due to stringent measures taken by the Union Government, inflation would definetly come down within six to eight weeks from now, assured Union Minister of State for Industry Ashwani Kumar here today.

''At present, top priority of the UPA Government is to control the escalated prices of the essential commodities, he said while talking to mediapersons here today.'' The Minister, who was here to participate in an interactive session with the representatives of sports goods and leather industry, said the rise in prices is due to the hoarding by wholesalers. The gap between wholesalers and retailers need to be bridged to control price hike, he added.

He disclosed that the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram had written to all the Chief Ministers to launch an anti-hoarding drive to deal with the present situation effectively.

Dr Kumar said the Govenment alone could not do much to control the inflation until industries would not cooperate and vice versa.

He cautioned the industry people that if they could not cooperate with the government then it would be forced to revoke the Essential Commodities Act as per the law. However, he said so far industry's response was constructive and positive.

Appreciating the iron and steel industries' endeavour to reduce its commodities prices to Rs 4,000 per ton, he said talks were on with Cement industry also and hopefully would bear some positive results.

UNI DP PS SY CS1720