NORTH-Culmination of a Set Drama

refinery, are being put in cold storage. The Planning Commission's long awaited exercise of updating the Fifth Plan has become an exercise in pruning Plan targets on a wide front. Recessionary tendencies are, therefore, beginning to affect the working of many engineering units, among them those THE traders have again successfully and indirectly pressed the Punjab government into abject surrender, In the last week of August, grocers and other retailers in most Punjab towns closed down their shops in protest against the Centre's bill for checking adulteration and the state government's independent measures to seize samples for checking on impurities. Things came to a head when two Ferozepur retailers were arrested for having obstructed the Health Department staff's attempts to seize samples as part of the anti-adulteration campaign. Grocers started 'dharnas' and 'hartals', demanding the release of the arrested and the withdrawal of cases against them. The state government buckled under, on the pretext that the hartal was causing great inconvenience to Consumers. On August 29, it decided to drop the cases against the arrested traders. Thus the government's anti-adulteration campaign lost much of its "force as it was clear that no action was to be taken against the offenders.