Chennai: “In order to control the rise in prices, the fine rice being sold at Rs. 30 per kilo that has been introduced in cooperative stores should be stocked in sufficient quantities and sold,” said AMMK General Secretary TTV Dhinakaran.
In a social media post issued by him on this, he said, “In Tamil Nadu, poor, ordinary, and middle-class families are being severely affected by the price rise of essential commodities used daily by the people, including rice, pulses, sugar, and cooking oil. In such a situation, the Food Minister speaking inconsistently every day about the rise in prices is highly condemnable.
The complaint among the public that rice ran out within an hour of ministers launching the sale of fine rice at Rs. 30 per kilo in cooperative Amudham stores, with the aim of controlling the rise in rice prices, raises the suspicion that, like the Chief Minister, the ministers too are inaugurating schemes only to make reels.
The Food Minister, who first said, “Rice prices have not risen at all; I am myself a witness to that,” the next day spoke in a way that compared and divided people living in cities like Chennai and those in rural areas on the basis of diet and social status. He has now been forced to respond to people’s questions, saying that rice prices have risen because the supply of rice coming from neighboring states such as Andhra and Karnataka has decreased and because rice is being hoarded, leaving him with no other option.
The Food Minister, who sat idly by without taking appropriate precautionary measures by anticipating the rise in prices—such as promoting local production, preventing hoarding, and ensuring sales at fair prices—has now, only after prices have soared to the sky and the public has begun taking to the streets to raise questions, tried to divert people by making contradictory and controversial remarks, which only exposes the inability of the TVK government.
After the TVK government came to power, in the Assembly session that followed, the Revenue Minister said that the ration rice distributed in Tamil Nadu is of the kind used for goats and cattle. Now, the Food Minister is boasting and saying that rural people eat only ration rice. This makes one wonder whether the ministers are treating rural people as if they were some kind of aliens, and approaching them in a way that economically belittles them.
Therefore, I urge the TVK government to stop diverting people by making unnecessary remarks about the rise in prices of essential commodities, understand the hardships people are facing due to inflation, and ensure that the fine rice launched at cooperative stores at Rs. 30 per kilo is stocked in sufficient quantities and sold to help control rising prices,” Dhinakaran said.