SHILLONG:
The Hynniewtrep Youth Council (HYC) has written to the Deputy Chief Minister, Prestone Tynsong on the issue of price rise of essential commodities including domestic LPG cylinders.
In the letter to the Tynsong, HYC general secretary, Roy Kupar Synrem, stated that the steep rise of prices has hit the poor and lower-middle class families very hard.
“It has become very difficult for the common man to make ends meet. The effect is also felt by the middle-class, salaried people who cannot manage their household budgets with their limited salaries. The poor section of the society and the daily-wage earners are the worst affected,” the letter read.
Meanwhile, the HYC has urged the government to take measures such as – setting up of a Price Monitoring Agency (PMA) in the Department of Consumer Affairs of the state with the task of monitoring prices of selected essential commodities, both retail and wholesale prices.
The HYC also suggested that the price monitoring of selected essential items should be done by collecting data from such markets/locations in the state on a daily or weekly basis and keep the data of prices in a public domain through the dedicated cell of the Consumer Affairs Department.
The pressure group also stated that the government should have a dedicated Price Stabilisation Fund (PSF) with a corpus fund to tackle inflation of identified essential commodities or agri-horticultural commodities to protect the interest of the consumers.