BJP demands probe into price rise

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday demanded that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government publish a 'White Paper' on rising prices of essential commodities that crippled lives of the middle class and the poor in the country.

He said the prices are escalating to unprecedented high levels despite bumper crops and buffer stocks.

He demanded an explanation from the Congress government and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on why the inflation had soared to double digits (11 per cent) and food inflation was hovering near 20 per cent.

He said the UPA government needs to give an explanation to the people as to why wheat stocks are being allowed to rot in the open yard in Punjab and Haryana, in absence of space in godowns.

The BJP president said the latest estimate of wheat production for the current year seems to be the highest at 82 million tonnes up from 75 million tonnes in 2006-07, while sugar production now was 178 lakh tonnes.

"In spite of such positive situation, why are prices rising? It is the duty of the central government, the union food processing ministry to ensure setting up of food grains godowns and cold storages in the country and the UPA government has totally failed on this score and that had led to perishing of wheat while people are being forced to cough up exorbitant prices to buy it in the market," Gadkari said.

The BJP president demanded an immediate the withdrawal of essential commodities from the trading list of National Commodity Exchange (NCDEX) to stop futures trading on these commodities to arrest steeping prices.

"Out of the Rs 8,03,842 crore (Rs 8038.42 billion) turnover of 2009 at NCDEX, delivery was 0.28 per cent (Rs 2,243 crore).

This artificial turn over pushed up the prices of food items. "The Prime Minister needs to give an explanation on who benefited from manipulative turnover/demand – speculators, manipulators or multi-nationals?" Gadkari said.

The BJP blamed the wrong economic policies and misgovernance of the Congress government for the price rise and farmer suicides.

Giving a comparative statistics on the global scenario, Gadkari pointed out that 11 per cent inflation in India was highest inn the world compared to 2.7 per cent in China, 2.6 per cent in the US, 1 per cent in Hong Kong, 0.9 per cent in Europe, 2.7 per cent in South Korea, 2.4 per cent in Taiwan, 1.3 per cent in Malaysia and 0.2 per cent in Singapore.