KATHMANDU, July 18: The main opposition CPN-UML released statistics regarding the price increase of commodities within one year of the Sher Bahadur Deuba-led government.
In an interaction program organized by the party’s Consumer Protection and Good Governance Department today, members of the party claimed that in the one year after the UML left the government, ill-governance was at its height and that the government had gone into the hands of middlemen. The party released statistics regarding how the price of consumer goods in the country had in some cases increased by 100 percent.
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Similarly, the UML stated that certain traders were already informed in advance regarding increases in prices of daily consumables, construction materials and fuels and were encouraged to stockpile such commodities. The party alleges that the people in the government, themselves, have been involved in the black marketeering. It was mentioned in the program that following the coalition government, the price of public transport had been increased by 28 percent and the freight fare by 26 percent.
According to the party’s report, the price of milk had been increased by up to Rs 14 while the price of dairy products such as curd and ghee had been increased by 12 percent under the influence of middlemen. UML asserts that the sharp rise in the price of cooking oil to Rs 110 was a consequence of arrangements made with the traders. Likewise, the party says similar arrangements were made with middlemen to increase the price of other daily consumables like pulses, rice, and sugar.
It was disclosed in the program that the price increase, which was not allowed to rise above 4 percent during the UML-led government, had increased to around 9 percent following the formation of the coalition government.
