Demo against fuel prices held in Kolkata

Kolkata, Feb 12 (ANI): Members of the West Bengal unit of Youth Congress staged a demonstration here against a proposed fuel price hike.

The demonstration was to appeal to the central government not to hike the price of LPG (liquefied petroleum gas) cylinders and kerosene oil as per the recommendation of a committee constituted by the Petroleum Ministry to review the prices of petroleum products.

The Youth Congress activist contended such a hike would adversely hit the poor and middle class families.

Pradip Prasad, who led the demonstration said: "As for the report (by Kirit Parikh Committee) which was presented to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and which recommended increase in the prices of cooking gas and kerosene, we appeal to our Prime Minister that keeping in mind the plight of the common man, the prices of cooking gas and kerosene should not be increased."

The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government has come under a lot of criticism of late for not keeping the track of rising prices.

Earlier, Dr. Singh had said farm output in 2009/10 would be higher than initial estimates, raising prospects that food inflation, which has soared in recent months, will soon be controlled.

India's food price index rose an annual 17.56 percent in late January, just ahead of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) setting the stage for rate hikes by raising banks' cash reserve requirements more than what markets had been expecting. (ANI)