Udupi: Members of the district unit of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) staged a dharna in front of the Head Post Office here on Wednesday protesting against the increase in the prices of essential commodities.

Addressing the protesters here, K. Balakrishna Shetty, vice-president of the district unit of CITU, said that the prices of all essential commodities had gone through the roof.

He claimed that the prices were increasing because of the wrong policies and programmes of the Modi government.

“The only people who were happy were big businesses, black-marketers and middlemen. These policies had seen the country slipping from 97th place to the 100th place on the Hunger Index”.

Though the prices of crude oil were declining in the international markets, the prices of petroleum products in the country had seen an increase..

This was also responsible for the increase in the prices of essential commodities. The demonetisation of currencies and Good and Services Taxes had only added to the existing problems.

The public distribution system had collapsed.

People had to face a lot of problems to get foodgrains through their ration cards.

This was because the government had made the linkage of ration cards with Aaadhaar numbers compulsory.