Left warns against oil price increase

NEW DELHI: Strongly opposing the move to hike petroleum prices, the left parties on Wednesday said if the UPA government went ahead with oil price hike they would raise the issue in Parliament. They said they are hopeful the government would defer the hike at least for the time being.

Assailing the proposal, senior CPM leader Sitaram Yechuri said, "We are aware that oil prices are rising in the international market, but hiking prices and burdening the people is not the only way. Taxation structure on petroleum products have to be rationalised. Remove taxes on oil imports. Imports have become necessary and taxing petroleum products make no sense."

"The prices of essential commodities as well as those of petroleum products would also be raised," Yechury said, adding, "We have given alternatives of slashing excise and import duties on oil imports. We know the huge deficit (due to hike in global oil prices) needs to be bridged. But imposing the entire burden on the people is not the only way to bridge this gap."

The party has told the Business Advisory Committee meeting which decides the week's agenda for Lok Sabha that it would raise the issue of price rise for petroleum products next week, if not on Thursday.

Left leaders Yechury, Basudev Acharya (also from CPM), Abani Roy (RSP) Debabrata Biswas (Forward Bloc) and Gurudas Dasgupta (CPI) called on the petroleum minister on Wednesday evening to impress upon them the need to rationalise tax structure.