The Hindu : National : Left parties to focus on inflation, price hike

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Wednesday, Dec 01, 2004

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Left parties to focus on inflation, price hike

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV. 30. The Left parties today decided to highlight the plight of people in the face of a sharp increase in prices of essential commodities and the growing inflation. They urged all parties to ensure that Parliament functioned in an orderly fashion so that issues affecting the people could be discussed.

At a meeting of the coordination committee on the eve of the winter session, the Left parties said they would emphasise the need to visit the whole gamut of taxation issues on petroleum products, which were adversely affecting the price situation, and ask the Government to take steps to bring down the prices.

They also decided to oppose the increase in Railway freight, which they said would adversely affect prices of essential commodities. They would also raise issues pertaining to agriculture as they felt there was a need for the new Government to realise the concerns of people in the rural areas, which have been "so prominently reflected in the mandate itself."

Disinvestment of public sector units and the blanket attempt by certain quarters to dilute Government equity in Central public sector undertakings, including public sector banks, would also be taken up.

Another area of concern was the attempt by some private telecom operations to under-invoice their access deficit charge payment, which they said was affecting Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited's plans to expand its network to areas where there was no access. While welcoming the move to facilitate public sector airlines to expand their fleet, they said a discussion should be held on the proposed move to allow private domestic airlines to expand their international operations. The meeting was attended by Basudeb Acharya, Nilotpal Basu, P. Karunakaran and Hannan Mollah (CPI-M), P.K. Vasudevan Nair, Ajoy Chakraborty and Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI), Debabrata Biswas and Bir Singh Mahato (All-India Forward Bloc), Abani Roy, Manoj Bhattacharya, Sanat Mandal and Joachim Baxla (Revolutionary Socialist Party).

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