BKU to stage protests outside DC offices over high fuel rates

BOX

To demand 8-hr power supply

Farmers will also raise the demand for ensuring eight-hour power supply to the agriculture sector during their protests outside the DC offices. With the government unable to ensure an eight-hour daily power supply, the consumption of expensive diesel was leading to a huge increase in the input cost for the crops, said the BKU leader.

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, July 1

The Bhartiya Kisan Union (Ekta Ugrahan) has decided to stage a protest in front of DC offices in Punjab on July 2 against the Modi government over skyrocketing diesel and petrol rates.

BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) general secretary Sukhdev Singh Kokrikalan said people, including transporters, farmers and labourers, were upset over rising fuel prices. He alleged that it was due to the pro-corporate policies of the Modi-led BJP government that the rates were being raised regularly. The international rates had steeply fallen since the Iraq war, but the price of diesel and petrol in the country had risen more than two and a half times, he claimed.

The so-called new economic policies of the BJP government had also allowed private oil companies to increase their rates arbitrarily on a daily basis, which was directly responsible for the rise in inflation. The central and state governments had also imposed exorbitant taxes by excluding the fuel from the scope of GST, he added.

Further, he said diesel and petrol rates in all neighbouring countries, including Pakistan, were much lower than those prevailing in India.

To address this serious problem, the government should be asked to take over the diesel and petrol supply and sell it on a “no profit, no loss” basis, he said.

The organisation has appealed to all farmers, labourers, transporters and businessmen to join the district-level dharnas on July 2.