Perception in country that Centre leading to 'starvation-like situation': Congress


PTI | New Delhi | Updated: 16-11-2019 19:25 IST | Created: 16-11-2019 19:25 IST
Perception in country that Centre leading to 'starvation-like situation': Congress
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The Congress on Saturday said there is a perception that the government is leading the country towards a "starvation-like situation", a day after an official survey reportedly pointed to a fall in consumer spending for the first time in four decades in 2017-18. On Friday morning, a media report cited the latest consumption expenditure survey by the National Statistical Office (NSO) to claim that consumer spending fell for the first time in more than four decades in 2017-18, primarily driven by slackening rural demand.

On Friday evening, the Statistics and Programme Implementation Ministry said it has decided to not release the Consumer Expenditure Survey results of 2017-18 due to "data quality" issues. "Can you cover up onset of poverty and penury by hiding data, Mr Modi? You should have come forward, released the data and told the nation, these are the steps we propose to take, but this government only seeks to hide employment data, farmer's suicide data, poverty data, slow-down data, consumption data, export and import slow-down data," Congress general secretary (organization) KC Venugopal said.

"Hiding data is not a solution, finding a solution is the way forward, but, the government refuses to do so," he added. He said that the decreasing food consumption within the country is quite alarming and shocking.

Venugopal told reporters, "We discussed (in a meeting) about the latest leak of an NSO report regarding the consumption of food items and consumption – everything. This is very shocking. Actually, there is a perception in the country that the government is leading to a starvation-like situation due to its bad policies." He was addressing the media after a meeting of party's general secretaries, chiefs of its frontal organisations, department heads, state unit chiefs and CLP leaders.

Venugopal said his party's district-level and state-level agitations against the "anti-people policies" of the Centre would culminate in a "massive rally" at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on November 30.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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