Up and rising! Cong slams Modi govt over spiralling prices

NT Correspondent

State Congress leaders have stepped up their attack on the BJP-led NDA government at the Centre for its failure to check the spiralling prices of essential commodities in general and fuel prices in particular which has made the life of the common man miserable.

Addressing a joint news conference here on Sunday, Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Siddaramaiah and KPCC President D.K.Shivakumar said, ‘’They have been celebrating Ugadi since the last 2 days. Ugadi symbolises a mix of the sweet and bitter in life but the Central government has given only bitter treatment to the common man. The price of Diammonimum Posphate(DAP) fertiliser has been increased drastically since April 1 by Rs 150 per bag. Now the price is Rs 1350 per bag which means an increase of Rs 3 per kg. Indian farmers use about 1.2 Crore tonnes of DAP a year and this means the government is extracting an additional Rs 3600 crore from farmers.’’

The Modi led government had promised to double farmer’s income by 2022 but instead, the BJP is exploiting farmers. The GST for plant medicines is 18%, that on farm machinery is 12% and the GST on fertilizer is 5%. Over 15 lakh metric ton of Ragi was grown in Karnataka this season in anticipation of higher prices.

Farmers are demanding that the government procure at least half of it. But the state government has notified the procurement of just 2.1 lakh metric tonnes under MSP. Till now only 1.9 lakh metric tonnes has been procured. The same situation prevails as far as Jowar, Togari, Paddy are concerned, the Congress leaders said. They claimed the Modi government is manipulating oil companies which had last raised fuel rates in November 2021 and did not raise prices till March 2022.

This was done with an eye on elections. ‘’How can we then say the govt has no control over oil companies? Prices of petrol & diesel have been increased by Rs 7.20 per litre in 12 days. Domestic LPG price was increased by Rs 50 & commercial LPG by Rs 250. Why did oil companies not increase prices between November and March?’’

“ During the tenure of the Manmohan Singh govt, when crude oil price was $108 per barrel, the price of diesel was Rs 55 and Petrol was Rs 71 per litre. Now under Modi, the price of crude oil is still $108 per barrel, but the price of diesel is as high as Rs 97 and petrol is Rs 108. There is a huge increase in prices under Modi”, they noted.