Rising prices

UPA's aam admi cries aghast : BJP

Bharatiya Janata Party expresses concern on certain economic indicators which exemplify the common man's cause. Effective increase in the prices of daily consumption items, rise in interest rates on housing loans, firming of overall interest rate structure for industries and slipping of the growth rate of core sector coupled with slackening in demand of certain fast moving goods are indicators of imbalance in economic scenario of the country, which needs immediate attention. This requires some short-term as well as long-term measures.

Bharatiya Janata Party demands a white paper on all these worrisome features which will reason out the malady and steps to ensure balanced growth.

Though the Government is boasting of managing the inflation at the level of 4.5%, it is the culmination of reduction of some industrial prices and does not show the full picture, which impacts the common masses. The prices of daily consumption items have seen tremendous increase in last one year. Flour which is available at Rs. 16 per kg has seen 40% increase over its last year price of Rs.11 per kg. Pulses have also registered a steep rise of 35%, which are available now at Rs. 34 per kg. Rice at Rs. 14 has also seen a dramatic increase of 25% over its last year price of Rs. 11. Oil and Gas have registered 12-15% growth in one year. All this has affected the common man's budget.

The NDA regime had ensured growth basically by lowering the interest rates across the board but of late the trend is reversing in the UPA regime. The home loan rate which had slipped to 7% in the NDA regime has now gone up to 9%. This has definitely hurt the common man who had started availing this loan to acquire their dream homes. The increase in interest rates on housing loan is registering a decline in the demand for new houses. This is warning signal for growing housing industry, which is an employment multiplier. The overall interest rates for other industrial loans are also firming up, which is detrimental for Indian industries to be competitive globally.

More worrisome are the recent results on core sector growth development. Crude oil, Petroleum, Power and finished Steel, which form the major block of core sector has registered a sharp decline over its last year's performance. Last year core sector growth was 6.4% while this year it has come down to 4.5%. This will further deteriorate the power situation, which will cripple the economy even more. One more feature is that our current account deficit has gone up to $13 billion from mere $ 1 billion during last year.

The UPA has drifted from its declared agenda to serve the common man and is indifferent towards managing the economy. Bharatiya Janata Party holds the Government. responsible for falling economic health and demands a white paper and a full fledged discussion.