Govt's steps to curb price rise half-hearted: Left

The Left parties on Friday stepped up their attack on the government, accusing the ruling UPA of adopting a 'slack attitude' towards containing inflation which has soared to a seven-year high of 8.75 per cent.
The parties, which provide crucial outside support to the Congress-led dispensation, alleged that the government has surrendered itself to market speculators.
Amid fears that inflation may cross double digit mark in the coming days, CPI(M) senior leader Nilotpal Basu said the country's economic scenario was "very, very critical" and that only a paradigm shift in policies would help.
"The price rise is primarily due to weakening of the public distribution system and policies regarding to food economy. The government is dancing to the tunes of market speculators and public stock brokers," Basu said.
"We don't think the government is taking earnest steps to control the situation. There are only half-hearted and incomplete measures," he said.
Basu, a CPI(M) Central Committee member, said the "neo-liberal" economic policies pursued by the government was the cause for the present economic crisis.
He said the government has "failed" to make it clear that the rising oil prices in the international market was due to speculative trade by global traders and did not adopt any measure to check it.
Attacking BJP, he said, the opposition party was only making "hollow statements" on the issue and they were pursuing the same economic policies as that of the Congress.
CPI National Secretary D Raja said rising inflation was a cause of "serious concern" and the government's "so-called" fiscals measures have not provided any relief.
"Our current policies are leaning towards market forces and the government is not doing enough to contain the situation," Raja said, adding "there is a sense of complacency in the government".
Questioning the methodology of ascertaining inflation, he said the government arrives at figures based on the Wholesale Price Index.
"Inflation figures might be much more as government never takes into account the price of a commodity in the retail market. They calculate the figures based on WPI from which we cannot arrive at the correct picture," he said.
Inflation touched 8.75 per cent by May end, the highest during the UPA government's tenure, mainly due to rising prices of food items and vegetables.
The rising prices of milk, pulses, spices, fruit and vegetables continued to pose a major challenge to the Manmohan Singh government in an election year even as Finance Ministry in tandem with the Reserve Bank of India is taking monetary measures to tame inflation.