KARACHI: Sugar cane growers have threatened to switch over
to other crops from next year if millers continue to deny them the
official rate of Rs182 per 40kg of cane.
The threat
emerged during a meeting convened by Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to
sort out a solution to end the deadlock that has persisted between the
growers and the mill owners on the price of sugar cane.
The
growers are of the view that the price of Rs130 to Rs140 per 40kg which
is being paid in some cities of the province is not justifiable.
They
proposed to the chief minister to announce a subsidy of Rs12 per 40kg
for the growers and ask the millers to pay the price of Rs170 per 40kg
to them.
“The provincial government is not financially
strong enough to offer subsidy to everyone but we will try to work out
some solutions,” Mr Shah said.
Last Monday, numerous
growers had attempted to stage a protest near Bilawal House. Although
they were dispersed by police and some arrests were made, the growers
did not give up and announced to stage sit-ins across the province and
block the National Highway.
The chief minister in a bid
to end the deadlock invited some growers to Friday’s meeting which was
attended by Minister for Home and Agriculture Sohail Anwar Siyal, chief
secretary Rizwan Memon, principal secretary to CM Sohail Rajput and
other senior officials.
The mill owners were of the view
that they were not starting crushing because they had surplus sugar in
their warehouses which they had produced last year.
The
cane commissioner told the chief minister that there were 38 sugar mills
in the province. Six of them were not going to operate this year and 32
had started crushing.
“The mills are purchasing sugar at Rs130 to Rs140 and the price varies from district to district,” he said.
The growers accepted that some political parties were trying to capitalise on their protests.
“We
are not a political party and we are only struggling for the rights of
growers so that they can get better price for their crop,” they said.
NAWABSHAH:
In an unusual development, activists of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)
also joined the protests by the growers across the province on Friday.
The
activists of PPP Nawabshah chapter held a demonstration outside the
local press club carrying sugar cane plants and placards inscribed with
slogans against the mills.
The party’s district
president Ali Akbar Jamali, chairman of Nawabshah municipal committee
Haji Azeem Mughal and others, who led the protest, criticised the mills
and said the PPP would never allow economic murder of farmers.
They
urged the millers to pay the official rate to the growers to enable
them to clear the debts they had obtained for growing the cane and
prepare the land for wheat cultivation.
MITHI: Former
Sindh chief minster Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim also joined the growing chorus
against the mills and said that PPP rulers were befooling the farmers
by denying them a fair price and forcing them to take to the streets as
most of the mills were either owned by PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari
himself or his cronies.
He said in a press statement
that had there been justice in the province all the millers who had
defied the official orders would have been in jail.
KHAIRPUR:
The growers in Khairpur were being paid Rs130 per 40kg by two mills,
said a local leader of Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) Imdad Sahito.
He
told reporters that the growers were compelled to accept the dismally
low price because they had to clear the land for wheat cultivation.
MIRPURKHAS:
SAB, Sindh Abadgar Ittehad and Sindh Chamber of Agriculture had planned
to block the National Highway near Hatri bypass on Dec 23 to record
their protest, said Mohammad Umar Bughio, president of SAB Mirpurkhas
chapter.
Mr Bughio said no authority was ready to take action against the defiant
mills and stop economic murder of the growers. Therefore, all growers
should attend the sit-in.
