The Opposition on Tuesday accused the Centre of failing to contain the spiraling price rise of most of the essential commodities across the country. The lok Sabha was debating the price rise in the afternoon and the MPs pointed out that bad management of economy and failure of mechanism to control the prices of commodities were the basic reasons for the inflation. Intervening on the debate, Union Minister for Food and Consumer Affairs Ram Vilas Paswan said the Centre is taking all sort of actions to intervene in market to control the price rise.
Citing examples of onion, pulses and tomatoes, TMC MP Saugata Roy said although the Government says that inflation has come down, but the prices of essential commodities have continued to rise. He said the Government has not been able to pass on the benefit of declining global fuel prices to the consumer.
“There is a problem with macro-management. Fuel prices have gone down, but rather than passing on the benefit to people, the Finance Minister sees fuel as a milch cow,” Roy said.
On pulses, he said the Government should ensure timely import of the commodity in order to keep the prices under control. “I think one major step would be to import on time and that too from countries which are closer to ours, like Myanmar,” he said, adding that pulses prices are already very high and was expected to be the steepest this year.
BJD leader B Mahtab too said price rise was due to domestic structural problems. While the average prices of vegetables earlier were less than Rs 10, it is now not going below Rs 30. Observing the problem of high pulses prices was “more manmade than natural”, he said traders were buying pulses from other countries and hoarding them and waiting for the domestic prices to rise.
To this, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said there was truth in this and the Government was concerned over it. Paswan also sought suggestions to deal with the issue. Mahtab said there are agencies which can tackle this issue and the Government can also look at the way other countries have dealt with such matters.
AIADMK member PR Sundaram said that while the then UPA Government paid a price for failing to curb inflation, the NDA dispensation has also been unable to control the price rise. “Why do we see a constant change in the fuel pricesIJ The global oil prices are falling, but the Centre gets excise on the fuel and it has not been able to pass on the benefits to the common man,” he said.
Defending the Government, BJP MP Jagdambika Pal said the Government has taken a series of steps to curb inflation and the primary responsibility of checking price rise was with the State Governments.
“In fact, the prices have not risen. The Wholesale Price Index is negative with minus 1.99 per cent. The Government has taken a series of steps, including making black-marketing a non-bailable offence,” Pal said.