· Modi government’s policies and failures are responsible for Price Rise
· Countrywide Protest by Workers Against Price Rise on 13 December 2017

The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) calls upon the working people throughout the country, its units and affiliated unions of the workers to register countrywide protest against the continuing price rise on 13 December 2017, in every industrial centre, city, town and rural areas by staging demonstrations.

Modi government’s policies are entirely responsible for this price rise, inflicting huge sufferings and miseries on the workers and other sections of toiling masses. In fact, prices are not just increasing; they are being made to increase through policy drive of the Govt to benefit middlemen, big traders, black-marketeers and speculators. This is also an integral part of their policy of “ease of doing business” which is synonymous to “ease of looting the people”.

Despite fraudulent showcasing of fall of price indices occasionally by the Govt, in reality, prices of all essential commodities including food grains, vegetables, transport and health services, medicines, education etc have been consistently increasing; the targeted public distribution system has been made to virtually collapse in most of the states; various conditionalities imposed including AADHAR linkage on everything deprives larger section of poorer population from the PDS, mocking at the Food Security Act. Price of petroleum and diesel has been increasing in regular interval and LPG subsidy is being cut despite decline and/or virtual stagnation of crude oil price in international market generating cascading effect on prices of all essential commodities. On the other hand farmers are not getting the remunerative price of their produce which is way below the ruling prices of food grains and other agri-products in the market. And in the midst of such horrifying syndrome of rising prices, speculation in commodity market is going on creating big fortune for corporate traders and speculators. Demonetisation followed by GST has added further fuel to fire of price-rise. It is not without reason that under Modi’s rule, the country’s position is going up in “ease of doing business” index simultaneously pushing the country down in respect of “Hunger” index.

While continuing price rise is putting the mass of the common people in unimaginable miseries making human survival difficult and causing death due to hunger, the Govt of the day is further adding to their miseries by depriving them with proper minimum wage. All welfare expenditure including on MGNREGA is drastically cut down, as reflected in the sharp decline in work days available under MGNREGA throughout the country.

In this background, CITU calls upon the working class to intensify countrywide campaign against the grossly inhuman policy of the Modi Govt in promoting price-rise for the benefit of big-business-trader-speculator combine and launch militant demonstration as widespread as possible on 13th December 2017 and burning the effigy of the Modi-Govt.
Issued by

(Tapan Sen)
General Secretary