Senior BJP leader Harshvardhan accused the Sheila Dikshit-led dispensation of doing nothing to control the price rise and showing "no sensitivity" towards peoples' woes.
Delhi government today came under severe attack over price rise in the assembly with opposition charging it of "piling up" on sufferings of the common man and failing to check "backbreaking prices" of food items.
Initiating a short duration discussion in the assembly, senior BJP leader Harshvardhan accused the Sheila Dikshit-led dispensation of doing nothing to control the price rise and showing "no sensitivity" towards peoples' woes.
"The government is totally insensitive towards the peoples' plight. The common man is struggling to survive in the city due to backbraking prices of essential commodities," he said.
Alleging "massive corruption" in the public distribution system, he said intended beneficiaries do not get any food items from the ration shops. "The PDS system has totally failed in the city."
Also accusing the Centre of doing nothing to contain price rise, he said "the whole country has been struggling with price rise at a time when an economist prime minister is at the helm of affairs."
Replying to the discussion, food and civil supplies minister Haroon Yusuf said "the government has been doing its best to provide relief to the poor people."
He said Delhi government is the only government in the country which has been providing wheat flour to people at a subsidised rate of around Rs14 per kg. Yusuf said already 1.10 lakh tonnes of fortified wheat flour have been sold at the subsidised rate in the last nine months.
The minister also blamed economic recession for the increase in prices of food items and said the country has returned to an impressive economic growth, unlike many other countries which are still grappling with the problem.
Yusuf admitted that there has been significant difference in retail and wholesale prices of vegetables and fruits and promised more steps to bring down the prices.
"We are concerned about the common man. We are a pro-poor government. We understand feeling of the people," he said, rejecting BJP's charges of corruption in his department.
Giving an account of initiatives to help the poor, he said the government had recently increased the minimum wage for labourers by 40% besides initiating various other welfare measures.
Earlier, BJP MLA Jai Bhagwan Narain slammed the Delhi Government as well as the Centre for failing to check the prices of essential commodities while Congress' Anil Bhardwaj highlighted government's various pro-poor welfare schemes.
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