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Measures will bear fruit soon: Moily

Special Correspondent

M. Veerappa Moily

NEW DELHI: Concerned about the general outcry over rising prices, the Congress on Saturday urged people not to panic because “scare-mongering only fuels inflation.”

Briefing journalists, Veerappa Moily, chairman of the party’s media department, said the measures taken by the government to arrest inflation would bear fruit soon.

Mr. Moily also asked political parties not to politicise the issue.

When it was pointed out that the Congress had sought to make political capital out of inflation during the National Democratic Alliance regime, he said: “This inflation is because of rising international prices unlike during the NDA rule. Also, any economist will vouch for the fact that the government has tried to arrest inflation. It will take time for these measures to percolate down to the masses.”

Kapil Sibal

He said there was no cause for panic vis-À-vis rice and wheat stocks. As against a buffer stock norm of 5 million tonnes of wheat, 5.8 million tonnes was available. And, in the case of rice, 13.8 million tonnes was available against the norm of 12.2 tonnes.

Further, he said, the recent duty cut resulted in a 16 per cent reduction in edible oil prices in the domestic market.

Left has no suggestion on inflation: Sibal

Bangalore Special Correspondent reports:

Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal on Saturday said the Left parties had not given any suggestion to the United Progressive Government on containing inflation.

Addressing presspersons at the Congress Bhavan, Mr. Sibal said “the Left parties have no real suggestion on containing prices of commodities.”

Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau member Sitaram Yechury had only given a suggestion to ban future trading in commodities. The rise in prices in the international market was behind the soaring inflation, he said.

The Left parties and the United National Progressive Alliance (UNPA) have decided to launch a week-long joint nationwide protest from April 16 against the “relentless price rise.”

Mr. Sibal said the UPA government was not responsible for the increase in the prices of foodgrains, vegetables, edible oil, cement and steel and crude oil. “The UPA policies have nothing to do with the rising prices. The government has taken all steps to contain inflation and is willing to adopt more measures.”

Inflation touched a 40-month high of 7.41 per cent on Friday as vegetables, fruits, pulses and metals became dearer.

On the Left parties’ protest, he said, “they have different economic and ideological positions.” But they had not come out with any concrete suggestion to deal with inflation, the Minister said.

In an attempt to rein in inflation, the Centre reduced the customs duty on several crude edible oils to zero and fixed the customs duty for refined edible oils at 7.5 per cent. It banned the export of non-basmati rice with immediate effect and set the minimum export price of basmati rice at $ 1200 a tonne. The ban on export of all pulses was extended for a year from April 1. It also banned export of cement.

Mr. Sibal hit out at the BJP for politicising the issue of inflation and said it reached 8.5 per cent in December 2001 when the National Democratic Alliance government was in power.

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