1. Stop price rise and strengthen the PDS.
The Economic crisis in nineties caused by the
indiscriminate borrowings indulged in by the then Government of India
from the world bodies like IMF World Bank etc. and the adherence to
their conditionalities created a conducive climate for the proponents
and champions of market economy to advocate the globalization path of
economic development. The State began to withdraw itself from various
sectors and the least governance was considered as the virtue and
synonym for good Government. In other words, the Government withdrew
itself from the concept of welfare State governance and opted for
faster economic development through privatization, liberalization and
globalization. The agony and misery of common multitude, the
consequence of adoption of market economy was considered by the rulers
as the price to be paid in the process. The various subsidies
provided to ensure that the essential commodities needed for human
existence is made available to the common people was treated as
profligacy and concerted efforts were made to cut them drastically
through budgetary proposals. The media, both print and electronic,
which had gone into the hands of large corporate houses propagated the
liberalization and globalization policies to the hilt and inside the
Parliament various legislations were moved and enacted by the ruling
class ably supported by almost all opposition parties, barring of
course the Left parties.
The Working class organizations except those affiliated to
INTUC and BMS realizing the dangerous impact of the neo-liberal
economic policies organized resistance through strike and other
demonstrative actions. Between the period 1991 and 2010, the
sponsoring committee of Central Trade Unions along with the different
Federations of employees organized strike actions on 13 occasions
which indeed made deleterious impact over the pace with which the
Indian ruling class wanted to usher in these policies. Not only the
common people, but also the intellectual and the middle classes had to
admit, albeit reluctantly, that but for the consistent opposition of
the left parties and the working class organizations, the global
financial crisis that engulfed the American and European Continents
and many other parts of the world would have destroyed the Indian
economy. To tide over disastrous ripples it created in the Indian
Economy, the Government had to make outflow of crores of rupees in the
name of bail-out packages to Indian Industry and corporate entities.
Once the crisis blew over, the Government went back to its good old
ways of implementing these discredited policies with a vengeance.
The unbridled accumulation of wealth in a few hands, the
cardinal consequence of the capitalist economic development bring
about a pyramidal society giving no room for the poor people at the
base even to eke out an existence. This aspect became more and more
pronounced over the years and reached a stage that it became
impossible for anybody who is supposed to be representing the workers
to continue to ignore this phenomenon. Those organizations which had
taken a contradictory stand against the sponsoring committee had to
come together to voice their concern against the marginalization of
the working people. Both BMS and INTUC had to join in the concerted
efforts of the workers to oppose, if not the policies, at least the
manifestation of it, i.e the escalation of prices of essential
commodities. The inflationary impact in the economy created by the
pursuance of the neo-liberal economic policies rather engineered was
conceived to effect transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. It
reached an intolerable stage in as much as its incremental rate from
quarter to quarter was in two digits .Never in the past has it
assumed the dimension of today with the result that all opposition
political parties in the country had to rally round inside and outside
the Parliament to denounce the Government of inaction and the
5thAugust, 2010 Nationwide bandh became total and resonant.
In the immediate years after independence, in order to
ensure food security to the people of India, the Indian ruling class
under pressure created the universal public distribution system for
food articles. It became an effective instrument in the years to
contain the artificial rise of market prices of essential commodities
especially in the face of hoarding and black market operations of
unscrupulous traders. The sweep and range of commodities made
available through these outlets, known as ration shops in the common
parlance even though beset with innumerable problems connected with
leakages and corruption, was the most effective welfare measure of the
Government of India, which in no small degree arrested and stopped the
starvation death in rural India. The advent of neo liberal economic
policies ensured that this singular welfare measure of universal
public distribution system was discarded.
Both inside and outside Parliament our Present day rulers
advocated that the higher prices are inevitable given the shortfall in
domestic production and due to prevailing higher prices of rice,
wheat, pulses and edible oil in international market. Far from truth
the statement of under production was, as the production of
food-grains in 2006-07 in our country was 9.3 cr. tonnes, 9.6 crores
in 2007-08 and 9.9 crores in 2008-09 despite the fact that our
investment in agricultural sector in the last ten years was less than
2% of the GDP and constantly year after year the Government had been
withdrawing subsidy to the farm sector.
To ensure that the universal PDS is in operation, and the peasants do
get remunerative price for their produce, the Government had created a
buffer stock of food-grains through the FCI. The statutory norm fixed
was to have 200 lakh tonnes of wheat and rice as buffer stock.
Presently the FCI godowns carry 475 lakhs of food-grains. Of it 3
million tones are reported to be rotting for want of space in the
warehouses and rats the beneficiaries. This made the honourable
Supreme Court to ask the Government as to why that which cannot be
stored properly be distributed to the poor.
While dismantling of the PDS destroyed the food security
enjoyed by the poor so far, the permission granted to speculators to
indulge in forward trading in food articles with an intent to
artificially boost the statistical growth of economy resulted in the
soaring of prices in the market. The fervent appeals made by the
informed public, intelligentsia in the society and the
Parliamentarians belonging to the left parties to ban forward trading
fell in the deaf ears for that would have entailed in the slowing down
the reforms, which course the UPA II Government had vowed to
intensify. The present FM is on record to state that taming
inflation will lead to blunting the economic growth. Despite the
reportedly enviable growth rate of 8 to 9% over the past few years and
the consequent rise in the per capita income of our country, vast
majority of our countrymen have become poorer while the number of
dollar billionaires were doubled. According to Shri Arjun Sengupta
report, 77% of Indian population have a daily income of less than Rs.
20. And the Tax concessions, deduction and exemptions given away to
those who can afford to pay the levies and taxes was of the order of
Rs. 6 lakh crores.
It is on the top of all these, the GOI hiked the petrol
prices perhaps the nth time the UPA is in power on the specious plea
of helping the Public Sector Petroleum marketing companies out of the
under recoveries. In the context of IOL making a profit of 10998
Crores in 2009-10 and the respective figure for HPCL and BPL being Rs.
544 Cr and 874 crores and the Govt. of India making a neat additional
tax of Rs.86,000 crores (Rs. 110000 Crores minus State share of Rs.
24,000 crores), an insensitive Government alone can allow the
petroleum companies to again rise the prices.
This being the general scenario which must be of concern
to us rather of grave concern, it would be pertinent to note the
erosion in our real wages brought about by the unprecedented
escalation of retail prices of commodities of daily consumption. The
6th CPC determined the minimum wage on the basis of the retail prices
of various commodities as existed on 1.01.2006. (Please see page 53 of
the 6th CPC report). We are, unlike those in the unorganized sectors,
in the company of those segment of the working class, who get their
wages cost indexed, howsoever, defective, trivial and insufficient it
is. Therefore, we get 45% addition to our wages in the form of DA (
raised to 51% by the recent hike). From the table given hereunder we
can see that the average rise in the prices of those commodities which
are taken for the computation of minimum wage has been of the order of
175%.as on 1.9.2010, which is taken the present day rate might further
escalate
Sl.No Name of articles Price as on 1.1.2006 As on date %increase
1 Rice 18 38 120
2 Dhall4varieties;average 40 87 120
3 Rawvegetables 10 40 400
4 Greenveg. 10 56 560
5 Otherveg 10 40 400
6 Fruits 30 100 330
7 milk 24 32 40
8 Sugar,jiggery.average 24 43 95
9 Edibleoil.3varieties.average 50 95 95
10 Fish 120 300 150
11 meat 120 40 100
12 egg 2 3 50
13 Detergents/soap 200 350 75
14 Cloth 80 120 50
Average increase : 174
Courtesy;NFPE
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