The Communist Party of India-Marxist city unit staged a protest on Friday against the hike in diesel price and government’s decision to revise the tariff every month, by pulling an auto-rickshaw with ropes.
Party city secretary Ch. Babu Rao said that the government’s decision to increase the diesel price by 50 paise every month, and Rs. 6 in a year was a cruel joke on the commoner. The hike in diesel prices would have a cascading effect on the prices of essential commodities.
Slamming the Centre’s move to deregulate diesel prices, the CPI(M) leader said that the deregulation of diesel prices would lead to continuous increase in the prices of diesel just as it happened with the prices of petrol after the deregulation. The deregulation would pave the way for increase in prices of all commodities and fares of RTC and railway also as the oil companies have been authorised to revise prices periodically. Instead of providing subsidy to the RTC and railways, the government increased the diesel price by Rs. 11 a litre, he pointed out.
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The decontrolling of diesel prices was aimed at giving massive profits to the oil companies, he said, adding, it would put additional burden on the common man.
Power tariff
Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India (CPI) city unit staged a protest against the power tariff hike, in the city. CPI city secretary Donepudi Sankar said over the past one decade power tariff was increased on one pretext or the other, levying a burden of Rs.14,500 crore. Alleging lack of foresight for efficient power situation management, he said the situation had come to such a pass that people did not know when power would come.
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Recalling how the Congress leaders had participated in a fast-unto-death in the Old MLA Quarters in Hyderabad in 2000 in protest against power tariff hike imposed by the then Telugu Desam government, the CPI leader said that the Congress had forgotten its past agitation. Instead, it was burdening the people on lines of the TDP, he said.