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PM launches war against price-rise

The government today announced a series of measures including abolition of customs duty on pulses, wider procurement of onions and sought the states' help in launching a vigorous nationwide de-hoarding drive to check the rising prices of essential commodities.

These important decisions were taken at a meeting of a group of ministers called by Prime Miniser Atal Bihari Vajpayee. This group, it was decided, would meet to periodically review the prices and developments on the economic front.

The meeting, which lasted for an hour, also decided to remove the ten per cent customs duty on pulses and four per cent special customs duty on imported edible oil, used in manufacture of vanaspati.

Union Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha, who briefed newspersons after the meeting, said Cabinet Secretary Prabhat Kumar would call a meeting of chief secretaries of all states on November 7 to review the price situation and de-hoarding measures taken by the state governments.

The prime minister will be writing to chief ministers of all states requesting them to step up anti-hoarding measures to contain the uptrend in essential commodities and items of daily consumption.

Sinha said the government is considering a proposal to bring potatoes and onions under the purview of the Essential Commodities Act.

Today's meeting was attended by Yashwant Sinha, Defence Minister George Fernandes, Commerce Minister R K Hegde, Industry Minister Sikandar Bakht, Food Minister S S Barnala, Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission Jaswant Singh and Union Minister of State for Agriculture Som Pal, along with senior officials.

Home minister L K Advani, who is also a member of the group of ministers, could not participate in the meeting.

Sinha said the government has directed the National Agricultural Federation to procure more onions within the country from states where there was surplus production and also step up imports.

The Union agriculture minister has been directed by the group of ministers to contact chief ministers of onion surplus states to help NAFED in procuring it. This would help NAFED in increasing the supplies to states hit by scarcity, specially Delhi.

He said the production of onion this year had declined from 42 lakh tonnes to 35 lakh tonnes because of unseasonal rains.

Defending the government's earlier reluctance to ban export of onions, he said the exports confined only to special varieties not much in demand in the domestic market.

Sinha said the meeting also reviewed the potato price situation. Its stocks in cold storages of Uttar Pradesh, a major producer of potato, were sufficient to meet the demand, the meeting was told.

Sinha said the prime minister has also spoken to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh to augment supplies of potato to different parts of the country, specially Delhi to bring down its price.

Kalyan Singh has informed the prime minister that he will have a meeting with his colleagues this evening to initiate appropriate measures in this regard, Sinha said.

The meeting also advised the state governments to deregulate cold storage charges and encourage market-oriented hiring charges to facilitate private entrepreneurs in setting up new cold storage facilities. In spite of the Centre's liberalised policies on cold storage, the state governments have not taken any positive action, he added.

Sinha said production of pulses in the country was stagnating for the past three decades around 13 to 14 million tonnes even though the current demand is placed around 16 million tonnes. India is able to import around 8 to 9 lakh tonnes of pulses from Myanmar, China, Turkey and Kazakhstan because the world trade in the surplus availability of pulses in limited, he said.

The Union finance minister pointed out that the prices of primary articles during the current year have registered a sharp 15.5 per cent rise due to unseasonal rains in September-October. The price rise of manufactured items has been marginal, with an upswing of 3.07 per cent over the last year's level.

He said the rising prices of onion and potato has encouraged the government to consider the inclusion of these items in the group of primary commodities that are accounted for tabulation of the wholesale price index.

UNI