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| Tarigami flays central government for price escalation | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Apr 16
State Secretary CPI (M) and MLA Kulgam M. Y. Tarigami while addressing a massive rally at Aglar in Pulwama on Wednesday has expressed grave concern at the continuing rise in the prices of essential commodities. He said that the prices of essential commodities have increased by as much as 15 to 20 percent in the last year, hitting hard the budgets of the people at large. Considering that the vast majority of working people do not have a fixed income and have no protection against inflation. Tarigami said that such huge increase in the prices of essential commodities constitutes a regressive redistribution of income from the poor to rich.
Mr. Tarigami was said that the sharpest rise in the prices of food and fuel has a reverse impact on the lives and livelihood of the working people. The price rise being experienced today is a direct outcome of the anti-people policies of the central government. These include wilful neglect of the agriculture sector and weakening of public procurement and virtual destruction of the public distribution system.
Mr. Tarigami also expressed serious concern over the weak public distribution system, which has been at the receiving end due to anti-people policies of the Union government. He said that the PDS has been deliberately weakened by replacing the universal PDS by a targeted PDS and then by gradually weakening the system of public procurement and cutting back on food grain allocations to the states. The systems of targeting has meant massive exclusion. The sections of the population that constitute the entire APL category are now virtually out of the food security system. Mr. Tarigami said that the methodology of poverty estimation followed by the government and the process of identification of families below the poverty line are deeply flawed. The use of such flawed official poverty estimates to determine food allocations for the targeted PDS is to deny the poor their share in national resources.
Mr. Tarigami urged upon the central government to strengthen the public distribution system by universalising it, restore the cut in food grain allocations to the states under PDS, strengthen the provisions of the Essential Commodities Act to empower State Governments to deal with hoarding and black marketing and cut customs and excise duties on oil and reduce retail prices of petrol and diesel.
MLA Wachi Mr. Mohammad Khalil Naik in his address expressed serious concern over the erratic power supply in the state. He said that despite huge hydraulic potential in the state, our homes, lanes and streets are drowned in darkness. The twin districts of Shopian and Pulwama suffers from erratic distribution system, irrational fee structure, defective transmission lines and leakages.
Mr. Naik also expressed serious concern over the non-availability of fertilizers to the farmers in rural areas at this peak season. He said that this could have a negative impact on the crop outp0ut during the current year. He urged upon the government to take immediate steps for making easy availability of fertilizers to the farmers. |
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