BANGALORE: Union home minister P Chidambaram on Tuesday chided the urban middle class for bemoaning soaring prices of fuel and essential commodities.

“There’s steady rise in the minimum support price of paddy, wheat and sugarcane , reflected in the prices of commodities . When the urban middle class can buy a bottle of mineral water for Rs 15 and icecream for Rs 20, why do they make so much noise about price rise?” said Chidambaram .

Trying to justify increase in prices, Chidambaram said, “The rise has directly benefited farmers. We raised fuel prices because the global crude prices had gone up. We also gave relief by bringing down the petrol price twice. There needn’t be any complaint for price rise when things are on the side of poor farmers.”

The home minister was again briefing the media about the UPA’s achievements. He said some strategies would strengthen the economy. “The main thrust should be on checking wasteful expenditure, increasing savings and investment in financial instruments rather than gold and higher production of output in fuel, iron ore and coal,” he said. There’s a need to increase overseas investment in Indian corporations , he added.

Chidambaram hoped the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) envisaged by the Centre would get support from non-Congress CMs.

Many state governments have opposed the NCTC because they feel it would infringe on the powers of state governments as a person may be arrested by any officer of this new agency. “The Naresh Chandra Committee report on national security has stressed the need for an agency to tackle militancy and terrorist activities across the country. We’ll try to convince state governments on this and bring about a consensus. I hope over time everyone will accept it,” he said.