The Finance Minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee sought cooperation from the opposition in carrying forward the structural reforms introduced in the country two decades ago. Mr Mukherjee was replying to a discussion in the Rajya Sabha on rising prices of food and other essential commodities.

Giving details of the prices of essential commodities, he said the inflation on food items remained steady and in respect of non-food items it has declined between October and November this year. Stating that price rise is an economical event, the Finance Minister said no economic logic will be effective. He said a holistic approach should be adopted while dealing with inflation.

At the same time, he said economic depression the world over is an area of concern and the ruling alliance and the opposition should come together to find a way out. Underlining the need for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into the retail sector, the Finance Minister said the government is making all out efforts to create more facilities for storage of food items. He said by March 2012 an additional space of 40 thousand square meters will be added to the present capacity of over 2.75 lakh square meters for the purpose.

Referring to the Public Distribution System, the Finance Minister admitted that the mechanism is not effective in most of the states. On a demand that the government should abolish central taxes on petroleum products, Mr Mukherjee said the Centre is collecting one lakh 36 thousand 497 crore rupees on account of central taxes and 32 per cent of it goes to the states.

This is in addition to the taxes imposed by the states. In this context he said the country needs over 100 million tonnes of crude to meet its yearly demand. He said of this, 70 million tonnes of crude is being imported.

Dissatisfied with the reply of the Finance Minister, members belonging to the BJP and the Left parties staged a walk out.