The irony is that the terror of price rise is persisting for last one and half years. In the last winter when the prices of items like potato, onion, pulses, edible oil, atta, rice, tea leaves, turmeric and above all sugar have gone up at that point, where even the richer class was compelled to think, whether it should be bought or not.
Bharat Bandh, organized by united opposition on last 5th July was successful or not, it can not be said correctly. But impartially, we can say that this Bandh revealed not only one but many new connotations before us. First thing, it was the first time when the whole media analyzed and reported this Bandh, in a different way, not in political way. They altogether presented this episode in an unprecedented and separate way. The basic issue behind this Bandh, the “price rise” was not taken into account, rather media tried to show that this Bandh caused heavy losses to the economy. On the basis of several estimates provided by different industry chambers, they showed the facts that country suffered such amount of loss due to this Bandh. It seems as if the political protests through strikes and lockouts have been taken place first time in the country.
It is notable that in Japan , the work culture and public consciousness regarding economic development is so strong that even trade unions want to show their anger against government, they do not take resort of strikes, they work nonstop even by tying black strip in their arms. It would have been fine if this same work culture were persisting here in India also. Nobody would have raised question on it.
But here the question is not only to run economy in hassle free way. Because here the all political parties, whether sitting in power or in opposition, they are not ready to bogged down their all interest before the economic development of country. Media told on the Bandh day, country suffered loss tune of 3,000 crore to 15,000 crore, but they did not explore the inflationary situation of country and after affects of price hike in the petroleum products.
Talking about the opposition parties, they also not deserve for their patting. The irony is that the terror of price rise is persisting for last one and half years. In the last winter when the prices of items like potato, onion, pulses, edible oil, atta, rice, tea leaves, turmeric and above all sugar have gone up at that point, where even the richer class was compelled to think, whether it should be bought or not, if it was bought, it was not in same quantity, because their pocket was not allowing it. At that time our political forces sitting in opposition were totally indolent and irresponsible towards the public cause. Only to some extent media was fighting against these odds. At last in last week of April, when prices started to fall some bit, the main opposition party BJP staged gherao of parliament.
In these situation media has to play its part in full manner, when it should grill party in power for their bad doing, as well as the party sitting in opposition for their passive attitude towards these things.
After two months, the opposition got awakened and price hike in petro products have given them fuel for agitation. The general perception of opposition regarding bharat bandh was that the control over price determination of petro products have been taken from the government and was delegated to the market forces. It resulted in immediate price hike of several petro products.
On Bharat bandh, the party in power UPA said through its advertisement in the country’s leading newspapers that opposition is doing politics, not agitations in forms of bharat bandh . It further said that to decontrol the prices of petroleum products was the decision of NDA govt., if UPA is making this decision, then why NDA is opposing this. UPA is of the view that in the absence of decontrolled prices of petroleum products, govt. has to bear approximately 50 thousand crore of revenue loss. Of course UPA is very right on this count, but if UPA is saying that opposition parties are making politics through this, then it is not fair allegation. Because UPA is far more champion on this kind of politics in comparison to NDA. The revenue loss on petroleum counts was rising, but UPA never raise its prices, whenever it was facing election. Secondly when the international prices of crude oil was fallen drastically and it came down to below 40 US $ per barrel, UPA did not slash the prices up till the general election came. UPA lowered the prices of petroleum products on the eve of last lok sabha elections to woo the voters. The falling prices of international crude oil was not immediately rolled back to the public.
Talking about prices of petroleum products, any government whether UPA or NDA, they always repeat this fact that country’s over dependence on imports is basically liable for the upheavals in its prices. So when international prices go up, it affects our domestic price too. But no government whether sitting at center or state, tell the people why have they levied huge amount of tax on this costly items.
The fact is that both union and state government collects substantial amount of tax revenue out of petroleum products. The question is why petroleum products are laden with so many taxes, when we are heavily dependent on imports. This case applies with all three major petro products namely petrol, diesel and LPG. So far prices fixation of kerosene oil is concerned, heavily subsidized kerosene is mostly black-marketed , in this situation there should be no any purpose to control its prices, rather this money should be spent on promoting solar source of energy and other non conventional source of energy and by this rural energy needs can be fulfilled.
So the central issue is price rise. It seems the higher prices have become permanent phenomenon of Indian economy, which seems to be very difficult to control. And govt. and opposition both have knelt down on this count. Whether it is central government or state governments, in spite of taking any fundamental treatment of inflationary situation, they start hiking prices of several goods and services. For example the NCT govt. of Delhi has raised the property registration, vehicle registration, land circle rate, CNG prices, Auto fare. Now talk is on for hike in electricity charges.
Not to say, in last 6 years, the tall claims of achieving higher growth rate in Indian economy has been neutralized by the rising prices. The UPA govt. has continuously nurtured the boom oriented economy in last 6 years. The first period of UPA govt. was responsible for aggravating the real estate market, bullion market, stock market; capital goods market like steel and cement market. Now the second term is proved to be era of short supply of agricultural items, resulted in higher prices which has not even raised the income of the farming community as it was claimed by some ministers of UPA governments that this price rise has increased the monetary income of the farmers. The faulty agriculture policies adopted in last 60 years have not made agriculture, a profitable occupation; rather it has made agriculture simply a mode of one’s survival. Resultantly farmers are deterrent with their profession of cultivation.
Now the economic planners have to think that what kind of format of economy they want to form, because even if country achieves 8 to 9 percent growth rate, under this inflationary situation, the real growth would be nil. In coming years, the black money would grow further. The biggest cause of concern is the agriculture sector. This sector contributed 18 percent in total GDP of India, but one should not forget it still provides livelihood for the 60 percent of the population and it has a major role in providing balances to the economy. Because any amount of imbalances resulting in supply constraints of agricultural items.
In these circumstances, media has to grill both the party in power and parties in opposition. n
