Date:17/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/17/stories/2008101759140300.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam

Price rise will be major poll issue, says SJM leader

Staff Reporter

SJM to launch campaign by publishing books, pamphlets
Forward trading the main reason, says Muralidhar Rao

VISAKHAPATNAM: Swadeshi Jagaaran Manch (SJM) leader P. Muralidhar Rao on Thursday blamed the UPA Government for neutralising growth due to its failure to check price-rise and inflation.

Mr. Rao who is the all India convener SJM told reporters who met him that price rise was the creation of the UPA Government and all the key players in the administration had tackled the problem with kids’ gloves.

Stating that price-rise would be a key issue in the elections for the Lok Sabha, he said SJM would soon launch a campaign by publishing books and pamphlets and holding a mass contact programme to create a debate on the reasons for the unprecedented price-rise.

He said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and the think tank of UPA had originally thought while opting for signing 123 Agreement that they could procure a record quantity of food grains in November so as to bring down the prices by early next year and face the elections confidently.

“Their game-plan boomeranged due to market crisis in the United States which had taken its roots a year ago,” he said. To a question, he pointed out that speculative trend introduced in food grains and oil sectors by introducing forward trading was the main reason for the present crisis.

Mr. Rao said even the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries had admitted that 40 per cent of increase in crude price was not due to enhancement in production cost.

Finding fault with the policy-makers, he said the Food Corporation of India failed to keep adequate buffer stock whereas the government deliberately neglected the agriculture sector to raise the output. As a result, India became a net importer of food grains.

When petroleum prices went up in international market, the Centre should have lowered excise and customs duties and asked the States to reciprocate by reducing sales tax.

Instead, the Centre had tried to pass the buck to the States.