New Delhi, June 15 (IANS) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Thursday assured the Left that his government would take measures to contain the rise in prices of essential commodities.

According to leaders of Left parties, who attended the Left-UPA co-ordination committee meeting here, both Manmohan Singh and United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi expressed concern over the spiralling prices of essential commodities and promised that the government would take immediate steps to control them.

"The prime minister said that the government will convey the steps to be taken to control the price rise in the next UPA-Left coordination meeting," said a Left leader, who was present at the meeting.

Sources in the Left Front said that the meeting did not discuss the fuel price hike against which the communists held a nationwide protest Tuesday.

The meeting also discussed the government's ongoing dialogue with various Kashmiri groups, communal situation in the country and current state of affairs in the northeast.

Besides Manmohan Singh and Gandhi, Home Minister Shivraj Patil and senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel participated in the meeting on behalf of the Congress, while the Left parties were represented by Communist Party of India-Marxist general secretary Prakash Karat, polit bureau member Sitaram Yechury, Communist Party of India general secretary A.B. Bardhan, RSP leader Abani Roy and Forward Bloc leader Debaprada Biswas.

"The next meeting of the coordination committee would be held in July," said a spokesperson after the meeting that lasted a little over two hours at the Prime Minister's 7, Race Course Road residence.

The left had set the tone of the meeting Wednesday by sending a detailed note on 19 different issues to the prime minister expressing disappointment at "UPA's inability to address the concerns expressed by the left."

In the nine-page note, delivered to the prime minister Wednesday, the Left Front has accused the government of distancing itself from the promises in the common minimum programme, the agenda for governance for the coalition.

"The experience of the working of coordination committee has been bad, the discussion on several issues has generally not let to any satisfactory conclusion," the note mentioned.

Terming the coordination committee as merely a talking forum with no concrete results, the note objected to functioning of the planning commission. "It has become hub of pursuing more liberal policies," it said.

The Left parties, in this note, had accused the government of pro-Us foreign policy by remaining a mute spectator to US led NATO's attempt to set up a military base in Afghanistan. This would have grave implications for the regional stability and security in the long run.