Dispute over price: PTI to lead protests across Sindh in support of sugarcane growers

Party plans to stage sit-ins at Teen Talwar, Karachi Press Club and other places

HYDERABAD: The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has pitched in with Sindh's farmers enmeshed in a dispute over the sugarcane price issue with the provincial government and the sugar mills. A protest strategy, centred in Karachi and spreading to other parts of the province, has been planned.

At a luncheon in Hyderabad on Saturday, the farmers' representative bodies briefed the PTI's central leader MNA Arif Alvi about the issue and enlisted the party's support in their favour. "Protest is the only way to solve this issue because the [Sindh] government is playing partisan with the millers, especially the Omni group," said Alvi, referring to a company that  controls several sugar mills allegedly owned by Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari.



He also assured the representatives of taking up the issue in the National and Sindh assemblies. The sit-in in Karachi, for which the date will be announced later, will be staged at Teen Talwar and Karachi Press Club and other places. Simultaneous demonstrations will also be organised in other districts of Sindh.

Alvi suggested that the sit-in should continue for a week to put pressure on the government. The PTI will also hold a protest rally, called 'Kissan Rally,' from Sehwan to Nawabshah on January 10, he said.

The farmers have formed an action committee comprising Sindh Abadgar Board, Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, Mirpurkhas and Tando Allahyar Abadgar Ittehad. They have been demanding Rs185 per maund rate while to their dismay the government announced Rs172 price few days ago, which is Rs8 lower than what Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's growers are being paid.

"The millers raked in around Rs9.5 billion last year by manoeuvring the price last year," claimed Sindh Abadgar Board president Abdul Majeed Nizamani. According to him, 17.25 million tons of cane was crushed in 2014-2015 and the mills earned an additional Rs550 per ton through alleged manipulation.

As the three stakeholders failed to reach a consensus in 2014-15, the Sindh High Court set the rate at Rs182 out of which the mills were ordered to pay Rs160 and Sindh government a subsidy of Rs12. The remaining sum of Rs10 was left for the Supreme Court, which was hearing an identical petition and its decision is still pending after a year.

Sindh Chamber of Agriculture general secretary Nabi Bux Sathio informed Alvi that the nine sugar mills in upper Sindh are paying Rs180 to the growers while the remaining 22 in lower Sindh are paying Rs155 to Rs160.

Now a regular episode, the farmers, millers and Sindh government quarrel each year over the sugarcane price, which the latter is stipulated to notify as per the Sugar Factories Control Act. Under the law, the crushing season has to begin from early October every year and the rate has to be fixed accordingly.

Section 16 of the Act says that the government may determine minimum price of the cane having regard to the cost of production of sugarcane and the return to the grower from alternative crops and the general trend of prices of agricultural commodities.

While speaking to the media on Saturday, Sindh information adviser Maula Bux Chandio said that PPP chairperson Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has also taken notice of the problem, adding that it will be solved in a couple of days.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2016.