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Government ignoring inflation: Yashwant

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: The Opposition parties on Thursday expressed dismay that the UPA government had not listed the challenge of galloping inflation in the general budget for 2010-11 and charged that the “aam aadmi” had been bypassed altogether.

Initiating the debate on the budget, the former Finance Minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha was critical of Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's statement that the crisis of inflation had been weathered.

He also questioned the rationale of the government that prices had shot up due to the hype over the failure of the monsoon. “If the hype was there, it is the government which is responsible.”

It was not surprising, Mr. Sinha said, that no measures had been suggested to combat inflation as the burning issue had been ignored totally in the budget.

He also made light of the stress being attached to the growth of the economy. “You don't eat GDP. You eat rice and roti. And these are totally out of the reach of the masses.”

Spiralling prices

Mr. Sinha also warned that the spiralling prices of essential commodities would impact the growth rate and doubted if the country would achieve a nine per cent GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter to get close to the projected GDP of 7.2 per cent during the current fiscal.

He wondered why the government had not offloaded some of its buffer stock in the market to contain prices when godowns were brimming with stocks thrice in excess of the prescribed level. The “aam aadmi” had been left to fend for himself.

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