GST Council meeting in Lucknow on Friday
Visakhapatnam Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, one of the leading trade unions in the country, expressed concern over pandemic-induced economic crisis and asked the Central and State Governments to insist by legislation the manufacturers to declare the cost of production and GST applicable on all consumer products.
At the recently held national executive of BMS at Ayodhya, resolutions were adopted over the economic situation arising out of a prolonged spell of corona pandemic. BMS national vice-president M. Jagadeeswara Rao told Bizz Buzz on Friday that the need of the hour is to curb the rise in prices of essential commodities and petroleum products.
BMS in a resolution wanted abolition of the system of increasing the price of petroleum products every day and bringing petroleum products under GST Act and stoppage of unnecessary profiteering by companies and individuals under the guise of rise in international prices of metals and other accessories and invoking of Essential Commodities Act upon those responsible.
Rao said the national executive demanded steps to increase production of food items by paying remunerative prices to the farmers and felt that the government should formulate a long-term policy to curb the prices of food items in the long run, to make the country self-sufficient for edible oils, pulses and other food items.
Rao said the government should take steps to compensate the workers for inflation by increasing their remuneration in both the public sector and the private sector and cancel the withdrawal of certain commodities from the purview of the Essential Commodities Act and implement strict price control orders and extend to other commodities also.
BMS has decided to hold nationwide awareness programmes and organise protests on September 8 against failure to control price rise. Rao said the pandemic has led to decline in industrial production and erosion of economic activities resulting in unemployment and wage cuts. Now the inflation of essential commodities is causing a severe crisis for the common people. Consumer inflation is affecting the common man in general and workers in particular. In the last 18 months, the rate of inflation has exceeded 6 percent, whereas in the previous five years, the rate of inflation was only between 3 and 5 percent, he pointed out.
The BMS leader said the national executive felt that the international inflation of crude oil and metals is also the cause of the increase in the prices of essential commodities. The cost of construction in the country is also increasing due to soaring prices of building materials. Companies are trying to make profit by creating cartels by raising prices unnecessarily, which needs to be stopped.
