Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

Chandy blames State for price rise

Thiruvananthapuram: Leader of the Opposition Oommen Chandy has blamed the Left Democratic Front (LDF) government and Finance Minister T.M. Thomas Isaac for the unprecedented rise in prices of essential commodities.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Mr. Chandy said the LDF government had failed to come out with an effective policy of market intervention to hold the price down, besides procuring rice in bulk from the production centres. The Finance Minister’s proposal for one per cent cess on value added tax (VAT) and his refusal to forego additional sales tax on petrol and diesel consequent to the rise in their prices further complicated the situation.

He accused the LDF of playing its political game instead of coming up with practical steps to intervene in the market and prevent the rise in prices. He said he had sent a fax to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh seeking restoration of the ration quota and convening a meeting of the Chief Ministers of States that had surplus rice and wheat production to seek out ways to increase procurement.

The Prime Minister, during his meeting with an all-party delegation, had taken a positive approach towards Kerala’s need and had even complimented the State’s public distribution system. However, he had expressed the inability to restore the quota owing to short fall in rice and wheat procurement.

Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal were the largest rice producers. The Andhra Pradesh government had permitted millers to sell rice outside only after meeting the State’s need to distribute rice at Rs.2 a kg. West Bengal was exporting rice to Bangladesh till the recent ban on food grain export. In spite of the ban, rice continued to be smuggled to Bangladesh.

The State government had miserably failed to control the rise in prices of essential commodities and had launched a stir against the Centre to conceal its failure to act within its domain. The Centre was taking effective steps to contain inflation and make available food grains. States like Chattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh had made huge allocation as subsidy to meet price rise. But Kerala had failed to do so.

Mr. Chandy wanted to know what the State Civil Supplies Corporation did to contain prices of essential commodities. The LDF leaders know only to agitate, but not rule, he said. During the five years of UDF rule, the LDF had called more than 20 hartals, but not one of them was against price rice. move to introduce single window system for admissions to Plus One.

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