New Delhi, May 11:With the Congress often seeking to blame the Agriculture Ministry for inflation, the Nationalist Congress Party, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, on Sunday sought to turn the table demanding “more stringent” measures from the Finance Ministry, headed by P Chidambaram, to control price rise. Expressing deep concern over the soaring prices of essential commodities and unbridled inflationary trends, a resolution adopted by the NCP National Committee here on Sunday appealed to the Government to “have a thorough review of the fiscal management policy”. It demanded a review of “the strategy of import and export of food articles and take remedial measures so as to control inflation”.

Simultaneously, it expressed “great appreciation” of Pawar’s performance as Agriculture Minister and hailed Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel as “the most popular Minister in the UPA Government”. The Congress sought to lay the blame for inflation on Agriculture Ministry citing supply and demand mismatch in agriculture commodities and demanding “better agrarian policies”.

In the resolution on economic affairs, the NCP took a “serious note” of the rising trend of inflation. The wholesale prices have been rising steadily and the rise in the consumer price index is more alarming. At the same time, the rise in the cost of service sector and real estate sector has not been taken into account in calculating the wholesale price index, said the resolution. “This dangerous trend of rising inflation has to be arrested and we suggest that more stringent measures should be taken by the Finance Ministry and the Reserve Bank of India to contain the inflationary trend,” said the resolution.

It gave credit to Pawar for Rs 60,000 crore loan waiver. Addressing the national committee, Pawar said, “I can take some pleasure in recalling that I was the first person, as Maharashtra CM, to waive off farmers’ loans.” In his concluding remarks later, Pawar indicated the Government was sympathetic to the demand to increase the existing five-acre ceiling fixed for getting benefit from loan waiver scheme. As for the farmers who had already paid off their loans before the scheme was announced, Pawar said there was a need to give incentives to them as well.

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