Sindh’s market committees struggle with finances

Sugar, rice, flour mills owe them billions of rupees but do not pay due to political influence

KARACHI: Against their initial purpose of developing and regulating wholesale agricultural products and contribute to the national kitty, most market committees set up by the Sindh government have become cash-strapped due to administrative and political issues.

If they had functioned properly, market committees could have contributed billions of rupees annually to the provincial government. Instead, most of them are unable to even pay salaries and other dues to their employees.

Sources say that bureaucrats responsible for looking after the committees never made serious efforts to run their affairs properly because of vested interests. As a result, the committees soon become riddled with corruption.

Market committees have existed in Sindh since the introduction of the Sindh Agriculture Market Act, 1939. An updated law called the Sindh Wholesale Agricultural Produce Markets (Development and Regulation) Act, 2010 was passed in June 2010.

The main purpose of the new law was to establish a market for private wholesale agricultural products in the province and provide more facilities to agricultural producers. Before the updated law in 2010, there was no provision for establishing private markets.

One of the reasons for allowing private wholesale agricultural markets to operate was the failure of market committees to develop grain and food markets on lands provided by the Sindh government. Proper wholesale grain and food markets were only established in large cities such as Karachi and Hyderabad.

Currently, there are 71 market committees in the province. According to the 2010 law, each market committee is required to have a board of seven directors, with three agriculturists and three others nominated by the allottees of the notified market.

But instead of following the rule, the majority of the market committees have no elected bodies and their affairs are being run by administrators appointed by the agriculture extension wing of the Sindh Agriculture Department. According to the director-general of agriculture extension Hidaytullah Chajro, out of 71, only about 25 market committees have elected bodies.

Speaking to The Express Tribune, he said that his department has no connection with the election of market committees. He also admitted that most of the market committees were undergoing severe financial constraints.

“It is true that most of them are unable to pay salaries and pensions to employees because of financial issues. The problems arose because of the insufficient recovery of the market committee levy,” he explained.

Per the former secretary of a market committee, who chose to speak on the condition of anonymity, sugar mills in the province owe outstanding dues worth over Rs2 billion to market committees.

“There are 39 sugar mills in Sindh and most of them are defaulters, including sugar mills situated in Naudero, Tando Allahyar, Sakrand, Badin and other areas,” he said. “Most of these mills belong to influential personalities and therefore nobody can take action against their administration on non-payment of the levy.”

He said that the relevant market committees of Naudero and Tando Allahyar had faced the worst experiences in this regard as they were taken to task for issuing notices to sugar mills owned by influential personalities.

“One of their officers was even sacked from his service for questioning the sugar mills on non-payment,” he added. “Out of 39, only eight sugar mills pay the market cess regularly to their concerned market committees.”

The former secretary added that bureaucrats holding important positions in the agriculture department have also been responsible for the non-recovery of the market cess.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 2^nd, 2020.