New Delhi, Dec. 20: The Congress on Monday asked the government to check inflation with “candour and courage” without tolerating “inefficiency or corruption”, and said it was against the “jobless” economic growth.
Rolling out a 10-point economic agenda for the UPA government at its 83rd plenary here, the party said the price rise was the foremost concern of the people.
“It is necessary to address the issue with candour and courage,” the party’s economic resolution said, adding neither the Centre nor the state governments should tolerate “inefficiency or corruption in the system that lead to artificial scarcity or goods or arbitrary increase in prices”.
The Centre should ask the states to deal “sternly with hoarding, black-marketing and profiteering”.
In his speech, the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, said inflation was a cause for serious concern but “we expect ... the rate of inflation to stabilise around 5.5 per cent by next March”. The downward trend has already set in, he said.
In her address, the party president and the UPA chairperson, Mrs Sonia Gandhi, said, “Prices of essential commodities, particularly, must always be kept at affordable levels and inflation kept in check.”
Though the pace of price rise declined to 7.48 per cent in November from 8.58 per cent in the previous month, inflation, which stayed in double digits for several months this year, remains a worry area, as pointed out recently by the Reserve Bank.
While hailing economic expansion of 8.5 to 9 per cent, the Congress asked the government to avoid “jobless growth”.
The resolution said, “Growth will be meaningful to the overwhelming majority of people, especially the youth, only if it create jobs and throws up opportunities for self-employment.”
Dr Singh said his government was committed to put in place the National Food Security Act.