Farmers’ body welcomes sugar crisis report

LAHORE: Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) President Khalid Mehmood Khokhar and All Pakistan Kissan Foundation (APKF) Chairman Syed Mehmood-ul-Haq Bukhari on Thursday appreciated the prime minister for taking action over sugar crisis and welcomed the commission report on it.

Addressing a press conference at the Lahore Press Club (LPC), they demanded the government to take strict action against the culprits responsible for the crisis, adding that farmers and consumers were always exploited in the past.

The PKI leaders urged the authorities to relocate sugar mills, set up illegally in the cotton belt and restore the region as per crop zones.

Sugar crisis probe body’s report ready

They also demanded withdrawal of illegally enhanced capacity of sugar mills, adding that the amount paid less to sugarcane growers in 2017-18, approved by the commission report, should be recovered from the identified mills and returned to the growers.

They said that the support price of sugarcane, cotton, rice, potato, pulses and oil-seeds should be announced for making the country self-sufficient in these crops.

The APKF chairman demanded that the government should announce a package for the farmers whose crops were destroyed by the locusts.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 29^th, 2020.