Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Drop hartal plan, Minister tells UDF

C.Divakaran seeks joint initiative to secure rice quota

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Food and Civil Supplies Minister C. Divakaran has urged the United Democratic Front (UDF) leadership to drop their hartal plan so as to facilitate a joint initiative by the Government and the Opposition to secure the State’s due share of rice and other essentials from the Centre and check price rise.

Mr. Divakaran told a news conference here on Friday that the government was ready for a dialogue with the Opposition on the issue and even prepared to take an all-party delegation to the Centre if that would help the State to secure higher quantities of rice, wheat and other essentials so necessary to keep the price level low.

The Opposition appeared to be groping in the dark. They must realise that the government would be only happy if they came up with any creative proposal to check price rise, he said.

The Food Minister said the State government was doing its best to hold the price line, but its efforts were not having the desired effect because the Centre’s refusal to sanction sufficient quantity of rice and other commodities to the State for distribution through the public distribution system.

The State Government had intervened effectively to get the ban on rice movement out of Andhra Pradesh lifted. The Kerala State Civil Supplies Corporation (Supplyco) had opened special rice counters at its 2,400 outlets. The government was also supplying rice to BPL families at Rs.3.50 a kilo spending Rs.120 crores annually in subsidy.

The government has, however, had to contend with repeated increase in the prices of petroleum products and acute shortage of cooking gas. The State was in deficit of 1 lakh cylinders of cooking gas, he said.

Against the State’s APL rice requirement of 1,80,172 tonnes, only 21,334 tonnes had been sanctioned. Similarly, the State had been sanctioned only 26,566 tonnes of APL wheat against its requirement of 43,592 tonnes. Rice and wheat to be supplied to BPL families too had been cut.

The total quantity of kerosene supplied to the State came to only 23,172 kilo litres against its requirement of 30,239 kilo litres.

Thus, 80 per cent of the factors connected with price had to do with the Central Government. The State Government had control over only the remaining 20 per cent factors.

It had done its best to intervene in all such matters so that the prices did not go beyond the reach of the ordinary people.

It had raided and seized food grains worth Rs. 2 crores, 12,879 kilo litres of kerosene and 2,12 cylinders of cooking gas. The Government would soon come up with a Kerala Essential Commodities Bill to check bridle monopolies, the Food Minister said.

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