New Delhi, Aug 15 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday said he shared the concerns of people over high prices and assured that every possible step was being taken by the government to tame inflation.
‘I know that in the last few months high inflation has caused you difficulties,’ the prime minister said in his Independence Day address from the historic Red Fort in the city’s old quarters.
‘It is the poor who are the worst affected by rising prices, especially when the prices of commodities of every day use like foodgrain, pulses, vegetables increase. It is for this reason that we have endeavored to minimize the burden of increased prices on the poor.’
The prime minister, who maintained grain was dearer due to higher prices to farmers and also justified the increase in petroleum products, said he did not wish to dwell at length on the reasons for high inflation on this day.
‘But, I would certainly like to say that we are making every possible effort to tackle this problem. I am also confident that we will succeed in these efforts,’ said the prime minister, in what was his seventh Independence Day address to the nation.
The prime minister said the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government had also been paying remunerative prices to farmers to encouraged higher production and support prices of wheat and rice had been nearly doubled over the past six years.
‘And one effect of providing higher prices to farmers is that food prices in the open market also increase.’
