State secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) V.G.K. Nair has said that the party's State unit will participate in a ‘jail bharo' agitation along with other Left parties on April 8. It will coincide with similar protests across the country.Addressing party workers here on Tuesday, Mr. Nair said that food for all citizens under the public distribution system was a major demand of the party. Stating that universal PDS was the only way to protect the people from the price rise and the global economic slowdown, he said, “If each and every Indian family avails itself of food through the PDS, the total annual cost will work out to only Rs. 3 lakh crore.” Pointing out that industry got tax exemptions worth Rs. 5 lakh crore during the last fiscal, Mr. Nair said that the Centre was unnecessarily favouring corporate interests.The state government funding mutts and temples in crores has no solution to problem of hungry common man in its agenda. There is need to alert the government to strive for hunger- free society, said V J K Nair.
Mr. Nair said that the food stocks with the Government were likely to touch 60 million tonnes by June this year. “It costs the Government Rs. 600 crore to maintain these reserve stocks,” he said. He said that the BJP-led State Government too had done very little in this regard. “What happened to the BJP's election promise that it would provide 35 kg of rice to every BPL family at Rs. 2 a kg?”(Courtesy : The Hindu)
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