Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Saturday said it is not possible for the central government to decrease the price of petro-products because huge subsidies are already being given to the oil companies for sale of fuel at controlled rates.
The two most vexed issues facing the nation are price rise in essential commodities and petro-products. Crude is being imported at a price many times more than at the time of the Budget and foreign oil firms were also increasing the prices of petro-products, Mukherjee said while addressing a press gathering.
State governments, he said, cannot continue to rely on loans from the Centre and have to increase their own sources of revenue to tackle the situation.
Mukherjee said in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress-Congress government was facing a financial crisis because the earlier Left Front regime had failed to generate revenue over 34 years of rule in spite of being told repeatedly to do so. He ‘had earlier told the Left that calling strikes when prices went up was no solution’.
Suggesting a way to tackle inflation in essential commodities, he said the Public Distribution System (PDS) should be strengthened. A strong PDS system will benefit 40 crore people and help arrest the price spiral, he said.
Replying to a question on why Jute Corporation of India Ltd was not purchasing jute from growers, he said he would inquire into the matter after returning to Delhi.