Procurement troubles: Mills to start buying sugarcane from Monday

Pakistan Sugar Mills Association does not clarify which rate they will use

HYDERABAD: A day after opposition parties gave a three-day deadline to the government to start buying sugarcane at official rates, the mills association announced they will start buying from Monday, January 12.

The spokesperson of the Sindh chapter of the Pakistan Sugar Mills Association, Qasim Pahore, failed to mention if they will pay the official rate of Rs182 per 40 kilogrammes or Rs155, which the mills want to pay.

The opposition, nationalist and religious parties had given the three-day deadline on Thursday during a convention organised to highlight the problems of sugarcane farmers.

They had warned of province-wide closure of the highways and sit-ins outside CM House and Sindh Assembly.



The event was organised by former chief minister Arbab Ghulam Rahim and former district Nazima of Tando Allahyar Raheel Magsi at Magsi House in Hyderabad. The Rabita committee members and five MPAs of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, opposition leader MPA Shaharyar Mahar and other MPAs of Pakistan Muslim League-Functional, the provincial leadership of PML-Nawaz, PML-Quaid, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf, All Pakistan Muslim League, Sunni Tehreek and other parties attended the gathering.

Pakistan Awami Tehreek's Ayaz Palijo, Sindh Taraqi Pasand's Dr Qadir Magsi, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz's Dr Niaz Kalani, the representatives of Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) and Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI), and hundreds of cane growers from across Sindh also attended.

The sugar mills went on strike on January 5 after refusing to pay the government fixed rate of Rs182 per maund of cane. The farmers claimed that the mill owners had agreed in their meeting in September last year over this rate but the mill owners backtracked and forced the government to decrease it to Rs155. The subsequent protests of the farmers made the government re-announce the old rates in December.

"In the guise of democracy, a worst form of dictatorship in fact martial law is in place in Sindh," said the opposition leader Mahar while addressing the convention.

Several speakers accused the PPP co-chairperson of being the owner of between 14 to 17 sugar mills in the province. "If rulers become traders, their subjects become beggars," said Zulfiqar Yousfani of the SAB.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2015.