The Opposition on Thursday demanded a probe by a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) into “scams” in essential commodities such as wheat, rice, pulses and sugar that caused price rise.
Initiating a debate on the issue in the Lok Sabha under Rule 193, Leader of the Opposition Sushma Swaraj said the committee should find out why such decisions were taken that led to scams in the purchase, import and export of wheat, rice, pulses and sugar.
Ms. Swaraj described as “unjustified, baseless and far from truth” the reasons for price rise as referred to by the President Pratibha Patil in her address to the joint session of Parliament on Monday. The government said in the address that the decline in food production, rise in global prices, hike in support prices to farmers and increase in income in the rural areas were responsible for the price rise.
The actual reasons, Ms. Swaraj, said were scams in wheat, rice, pulses and sugar and all these items were consumed by the vast majority of the poor. The government imported and exported sugar “simultaneously.” “It was being exported at Rs. 12.5 a kg and imported at Rs. 36 a kg at the same time.”
The total profits of 33 listed sugar mills jumped from Rs. 30 crore in October-December 2008 to Rs. 901 crore in the same period next year, she said.
Rejecting the government’s claims on declining food production, she said production in 2009-10 dropped from 234 million tonnes in 2008-09 to 216 million tonnes “which is not a major fall.” She quoted figures to show that global food prices did not increase much during this period, but declined in respect of some items.
On higher minimum support price (MSP) for farmers, she said there was “no relation between the MSP and the prices that consumers are paying.” The government was giving by one hand to the farmer and taking it back by the other by raising the urea prices by Rs. 25.
Ms. Swaraj accused the government of taking decisions that led to “scams.” Despite a ban on its import since 2007-08, wheat continued to be imported at prices much higher than the domestic prices every year till 2009-10.
The government allowed export of non-basmati rice in the name of giving it to some African nations. “Private parties were allowed to export, but the rice did not reach those countries for which they were meant.” Traders did not lift imported pulses from the docks in Gujarat as “they wanted to reap double or triple profits by waiting for the prices to rise.”
Ms. Swaraj took a dig at Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar on his statement that he was not an astrologer and so could not predict when prices would fall.
