Think twice before acting on Parikh's panel

Amidst the sky-rocketing prices of all essential commodities, the Union government will have to think twice before acting on the expert group reccomendations on petroleum prices. The people are already burdened with rising prices of all essential commodities and edible items. Inflation in the prices of food items are going up and up for the last six months. The Manmohan Singh -led UPA Government, which claimes to be the spokesperson of the Aam Admi, is proving to be a total failure. As PDS (Public Distribution System) is under the administrative control of the state government and because of that the Centre holds them responsible for the failure of reining in prices, but it forgets that here in Delhi there is Shiela Dixit Government of the Congress, what is the position on price rise here in national capital? Delhi Government appears to have left the Delhiites at the mercy of blackmarketeers, hoarders and profiteers on one hand and the people of Delhi finds very difficult to get meal even for once a day on the other. If some hard measures to check the price rise are not taken immediately, the people’s anger at the government will cetainly be seen in any coming elections. The expert group led by Kirit Parikh has submitted report to the government, advocating the freeing of petroleum products price which will result in the hike of Rs.6 per litre Kerosene , 3 diesel and 4 petrol and Rs 100 per LPG cylinder repectively. The Union Cabinet is to discuss the Kirit Parikh’s recommendation. But seeing the people’ anger, the Cabinet is expected to put price hike decision on hold. Parikh’s report says that by freeing the petroleum products price hike,it will encourage competitive market and even retail price will also be guided by global market price hike. Presently, retailers in petroleum products are under the control of government. It is viewed that by hiking the petroleum prices, the growing burden on government will lessen. But what about the growing burden on the poor people. In the given situation of steep rise in prices of all consumer products, freeing the petroleum product prices will prove to be suicidal for the UPA government at the Centre. Because now it is going to be unbearable for the common poor people in the country to sustain the back breaking price rise. No items in the market are avail at cheaper rate and especially the prices of food items are going up faster and faster.