Left to meet Chidambaram on 'pro-poor' changes in Budget

The Left Front is scheduled to hold a crucial meeting with Finance Minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday in a final bid to seek ''pro-poor'' changes in the Budget.

''The finance bill will be taken up in Parliament on Tuesday but it is still not too late,'' Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet said after a meeting of the party Politburo.

Surjeet said the prime minister assured the Left Front at a meeting last week that its main demands on the Budget had merit and would be given due consideration.

Regretting that the promises made in the common minimum programme were being given the go by, the CPI-M leader said, ''Prices are going up and the petroleum price hike which is now on the cards will further aggravate the situation.''.

Instead of providing relief to the common man in such a situation the finance minister was thinking of reducing subsidies, Surjeet said. ''He is not bothered about the promise of six per cent allocation for health and education,'' he added.

Surjeet also regretted that nothing was being done about land reforms which do not need any allocation of money but the political will to persuade the state governments to comply.

He said it was doubtful whether the three-tier public distribution system announced by the Deve Gowda government would be implemented. ''One does not known when it is going to come into operation.... But people are not going to take it lying down,'' he added.

The Politburo also expressed concern that many other commitments like the Lok Pal Bill and reservation for women in Parliament and legislatures had receded into the background.

UNI

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