India News Online » News Analysis » Indian Politics » 

Rising prices: PM convenes Cabinet Committee meeting today

	March 31, 2008

With the United Progressive Alliance government coming under tremendous political pressure over soaring prices, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has convened a special meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Prices today (Monday, March 31).



Food and Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and Commerce Minister Kamal Nath will attend.



According to well-placed sources, Dr. Singh will review the availability and prices of all essential commodities, including edible oils, pulses, wheat, rice, sugar, vanaspati, cement and steel.



The meeting will evaluate the import and export position of all essential food commodities. The 40 per cent duty on soyabean oil, imported from the United States, Argentina and Brazil, is expected to be reduced to 20 per cent to encourage imports. The duty on palm oil was cut last week.



Although the Food Ministry has been authorised ‘in principle’ by the Group of Ministers to import wheat during the year, if necessary, the sources said there would be no imports this year as fresh harvest beginning April was expected to ease the supply position. Moreover, with several States going to the polls later this year, the government might not opt for buying foreign wheat at a price much higher than the minimum support price given to farmers, unless food security was threatened.



On Friday, Railways Minister Lalu Prasad met United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi and urged her to convene a meeting of the UPA to discuss inflation, galloping towards seven per cent.



The meeting of the CCP is said to be a precursor to such a move.





—————————Box——————





EC ready to hold Lok Sabha elections after August



Chief Election Commissioner N.Gopalswamy said in Tiruchirappalli on March 29, that the EC would be ready for Lok Sabha elections after August 31 with photo electoral rolls (PER) and electors photo identity cards (EPIC).



He said the EPIC size would be reduced and would be made to the size of a credit card. He ruled out replacing the old EPIC with the new small EPIC cards. Only new voters would get the new card, he said.



Asked by reporters which are the states that would go to Assembly elections along with Lok Sabha polls, he said elections to Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Sikkim and Karnataka were held along with the Lok Sabha elections last time.



Gopalaswamy said it is “practically impossible” to reconsider the delimitation process as it is over.



“It is practically impossible to reconsider the delimitation process. The reorganisation of polling booths as per newly formed constituencies is also going on. Booth wise photo electoral rolls are also prepared”, he said.





————————Box ends——————-





No nuclear deal without political consensus : Pranab



External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said that India will not move forward on the civilian nuclear deal with the United States until a political consensus is achieved. He was speaking in Washington on March 25 during his US visit in which he met President George Bush and had discussions with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He said the Government is making effort to evolve what he called “a meeting ground” with the Left parties supporting the ruling UPA from outside.



“If we are able to evolve a consensus then it will be possible to hasten the process (of taking the deal forward),” Pranab Mukherjee told reporters.



“The UPA government is trying to work out a meeting ground between it and a section of its supporters [to evolve consensus],” said Mukherjee.



He said: “There is opposition from the Left and the BJP to the nuclear deal and therefore we have to take into account that. If it is subsequently not honoured by the next government it would lead to an embarrassing situation for the country.”



He said although India had finalised the language of the safeguards agreement text with the IAEA it was difficult to indicate at this juncture a time-frame by when the nuke deal could be wrapped up.





Govt. gets more time for nuclear agreement



Observers say that with the US saying that there is still time to carry out the nuclear deal, the UPA Government may get time till August this year to arrive at a political consensus. After Pranab Mukherjee’s talks with President Bush and other US functionaries, the White House spokesperson said there is still time remaining to consummate the deal, rejecting the proposition that a “now or never” moment had arrived. The comment was a departure from earlier statements by US officials that the clock was running out to consummate the deal.



In the context of the White House observation that there are several months remaining to work with India on the deal, it would appear that the whole exercise may extend well into summer. Mukherjee himself let it slip that he did not know when “whether in June or August” - the matter will be resolved.



While mid-level US officials have repeatedly stressed that time is running out for taking the last steps to implement the deal, some analysts think that the legislative calender can still accommodate the final vote on the deal in late summer.



Dispensing with the convention of not bringing domestic politics abroad, the External Affairs Minister blamed both the Left parties and the BJP for holding up the deal while insisting that it was in long term national interest to bring them on board. He described the Left’s opposition to the deal as ideological.





Nuclear energy imperative for clean, green India : PM



Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the UPA Government is committed to further development of nuclear energy, both as an environment friendly source of power and as a means of widening the energy basket available to us. Inaugurating a gas based power project in New Delhi on March 24, he said the nuclear power is the answer to a clean, green India despite the demands of urbanisation. Without mentioning the Indo-US nuclear deal, Manmohan Singh sought to answer criticism that nuclear energy is unaffordable. “While some sources of energy may be cheap today, we have to think of the future. We have to think of the future generations,” he said.





Nuclear deal not connected with strategic weapons programme : NSA



National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said in New Delhi on March 26 that the civilian nuclear deal with the United States had nothing to deal with the strategic weapons programme.



Delivering the Air Chief Marshal P.C. Lal memorial lecture, he regretted that domestic debate on the issue had “unfortunately been dominated by other considerations.”



The “reality” was that it was intended to end India’s isolation from global nuclear commerce and to increase its power generation, he said.





Stop being afraid of N-deal : Rahul Gandhi



Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi said on Wednesday, March 26, it was time India stopped being feared of the nuclear deal.



“On the nuclear deal, my thinking is that in India, we need not be scared or lack confidence in dealing with anything for anybody,” he said during an interaction with students in Mangalore. He said India is strong enough to succeed against challenges from the rest of the world.





No change in CPI(M) stand : Karat



CPI(M) general secretary Prakash Karat has in the meantime said that his party will ensure that India does not go ahead with the nuclear deal with the United States. With referring to the Government’s latest round of talks with the United States on the deal, he said the party’s objective would be to see that the defence framework agreement between India and he US was nullified. He said there should be disentanglement from any strategic tie up with the United States.



In an article in the party organ, People’s Democracy, Karat said there is need for mobilisation of all patriotic anti-imperialistic forces in the country and a sustained movement to force the Congress and the BJP to desist from pursuing a strategic tie up with the United States.





————————Box——————



Nuclear power plants running out of fuel



With the Indian Government not making much headway towards implementing the nuclear deal with the United States, there are reports that a majority of nuclear power plants in the country are showing a decline in their operating capacities compared to last year, primarily because of shortage of fuel supplies. There has been a 10 per cent reduction in overall power generation.



According to information available on the website of Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), the capacity factor of ten of the 17 units has gone down in 2007-08 (till February) compared to the previous year. In some cases, like Unit-I in Kalpakkam, the fall in the operating capacity has been drastic, coming down to 36 per cent from 72 per cent last year. Unit-1 in Kakrapar has similarly been operating at only 46 per cent of its capacity as compared to 67 per cent last year.



Four of the plants have also shown a marginal increase of 2-5 per cent in their operating capacities.



In 2006-07, these 17 power plants together generated 18,800 million units (MUs) of electricity which has come down to 15,600 MUs this year (till February). NPCIL says at the end of this month, the expected total figure is 17,000 MUs.