Press Statement issued by Sh. Prakash Javadekar, National Spokesperson

1. UPA Govt.'s decision to cut PDS food subsidies by Rs. 4524 crores is anti poor and anti people thus hurting the same AAM AADAMI in whose name it came to power. The Govt. has taken two retrograde steps by its single decision. In the first place, it has reduced the quantum of food grains to be made available to BPL and APL families through PDS and secondly it has hiked the price by 25% under APL scheme. This is nothing but dismantling the Public Distribution System in the country. This will hurt the poor most. BJP demands reversal of this decision.

NDA govt. under Sh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee had consistently addressed the concerns of the poor by allocating higher subsidies for this programme. In 2002-03 the subsidies went up to 35000 crores of rupees as it increased the quantum of food grains availability from 25 KG to 35 KG per month. At the same time NDA Govt. increased the scope of Antyoday Yojana by including 10 million more families to already existing 5 million families to cover the poorest of the poor 100 million population. The NDA Govt. also reduced the price of Wheat & Rice for this scheme making it available at Rs. 2&3 per KG respectively. The present UPA Govt. is negating all these initiatives, which were pro-poor and pro-people.

The reason cited by the present Govt. to reduce the quantum under PDS is insufficient stock. This is true because firstly the Govt. is not purchasing enough quantity from the farmers and secondly, do not want to invest in the food stocks. This is a deliberate UPA policy as it was spelled out in their mid term economic review and thus taken a conscious anti farmer decision not to increase purchase price of Wheat & Rice for next few years.

2. UPA's decision to promulgate ordinance for protecting minority institutes, is yet another step against the social justice. By denying SC/ST/OBC sections the opportunity to get reservation in well established and reputed minority educational institutes, the Govt. is denying the fundamental right to these socially and educationally oppressed sections of the society. This ordinance is the result of appeasement and vote bank politics and signifies the surrender before the communal forces. All parties had actually agreed to reservation in all educational institutes without exception. But Govt. changed its stand after some fundamentalists resisted this step. At least Govt. could have forced minority educational institutes to give reservation to the specific weaker sections amongst those religious or linguistic minorities. But Govt. chose to ignore the justice and play politics.