By IANS,
New Delhi : Non-Congress chief ministers Saturday attacked the government on price rise and asked it to be flexible in the implementation of central welfare schemes.
Speaking at the National Development Council (NDC) meeting here, Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi said “inflation poses a great threat to the country’s development and rising prices have made life very difficult for people”.
Modi accused the government of making “little effort to tackle the supply side constraints” and added that “the agricultural sector is practically stagnating with insignificant increases in production of food grains”.
He suggested “constant monitoring of availability and prices of essential commodities in an appropriate price band”.
Attacking the government on the issue of price rise, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa said: “Price rise is an area where the central policies have failed and are even counter-productive.”
She added: “Price levels of food and fuel have been rising continuously and heaping misery on people.”
She said the price of diesel was increased 13 times between 2004 and 2011 making it Rs.43.80 per litre at present and that of petrol 19 times raising it to Rs.67.22/litre at present. The LPG cylinder price was increased during the period from Rs.249.02 to Rs.404.40, she said.
“How do you then expect inflation to come down,” asked Jayalalithaa.
Asking the centre to be flexible on social welfare schemes, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar said though the central government had passed the Right to Education act, the state did not have enough funds.
“The legal obligations under the RTE has no relationship with availability of state finances,” said Nitish Kumar.
He said the Right to Food legislation being planned would “multiply these problems”.
Flagging the price rise issue, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati too said the common man is suffering due to high inflation and the situation on high prices of essential commodities was serious.
“While the consumers are suffering because of price rise, economic development is getting affected as entrepreneurs are wary of investing capital,” said Mayawati.
Pointing at discrimination by the centre among states, Mayawati said while a big state like Uttar Pradesh has been allotted only one coal block, that too partially, some smaller states have been allotted more blocks.
“This is not fair. We have requested for six coal blocks,” she said.