Centre nod to hike pay politically motivated: Subhas

Barrackpore, Aug 18 (UNI) West Bengal Transport, Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Subhas Chakraborty today said the Centre's recent move to revise pay package of central government employees was politically motivated in view of the coming parliamentary polls.

Mr Chakraborty criticised Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh for taking such decision when the country's economy was reeling under inflation.

After inaugurating a mass convention organised by the West Bengal Fair Price Shop Dealers Welfare Association here, he said it was ridiculous for the Prime Minister, formerly a Union Finance Minister and RBI Governor, for taking such ''politically motivated'' decision.

'' It would float additional Rs 22,000 crore in the market through the 55 lakh central government employees and raise the price of commodities in the next three months, '' the minister said.

Questioning whether the government would be able to cope with commodity shortage in the open market, Mr Chakraborty said the hike in the wages of central government employees would result into socio-economic imbalance.

The CPI(M) leader alleged that the Centre had destroyed public distribution system of essential commodities gradually.

'' Barring a few Left Front-run state governments, no other states led by the NDA or UPA government maintained or revamped PDS, by providing various essential commodities on subsidised rates through fair price shops,'' he said.

According to him, the state had more than 20,000 fair price shops.

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