Rising prices crippling common man: Nama Nageswara Rao

New Delhi: TRS MPs on Monday cornered the Centre on the rising prices of essential commodities, including cooking gas and demanded the Centre to decrease the GST burden on common man.

Participating in a discussion on rising prices of essential commodities and GST in Lok Sabha on Monday, TRS party leader in Lok Sabha Nama Nageswara Rao alleged that the prices of essential commodities and petroleum products had increased manifold during the last eight years. "The price rise is making the poor become poorer. It is not proper for the Centre to state that there was no price rise," said Nageswara Rao.

The TRS leader said that while the production of wheat and rice had decreased worldwide, the production increased in Telangana but the Centre was not purchasing it, Rao said. On the other hand, the Centre has imposed a tax burden on fertilizers. It has also increased the cooking gas price which is now Rs 1,100. How will the poor live with such high prices, he asked?

Nageswara Rao said that the farmers of Telangana were unhappy at the Centre because it did not procure the rice from the state. He demanded the government to decrease the GST and taxes on the essential commodities. It is painful that even the bread used by patients is taxed in this government, he alleged.

Referring to borrowings by the state government, Rao said that Telangana was using the loans for construction of irrigation projects and power plants.

Whenever a question was asked in this House as to which was the state that provides drinking water to all the households, the answer was Telangana. "In the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojna, ten out of top ten 'Adarsh Gram' are from Telangana and out of 20 villages 19 are from Telangana," said Rao. He further said that while the Centre was on a selling spree (privatisation of PSUs), the Telangana State was creating new assets.