Implementing the price: Retrospective payment sought for cane farmers

The SHC last week decided upon a rate of Rs172 per maund

HYDERABAD: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has urged the government to constrain the sugar mills for retrospective payment of the Sindh High Court (SHC) ordered rate of sugarcane.

Over four months after the beginning of the dispute over the cane price between the mills and the farmers, the SHC last week ordered the mills to pay Rs172 per maund instead of the mills' petitioned price of Rs155 and the farmers' demanded rate of Rs182.

"The cane growers who sold their crop [to the mills] at a rate below Rs172 should be paid the remainder," said SCA members at a meeting, chaired by chamber president Dr Nadeem Qamar, in Hyderabad on Saturday.

The SCA also requested the provincial government to avoid enforcing Section 144 to ban the intra-provincial sale of wheat.

According to wheat growers, the traders from Punjab pay a better price for the crop in the open market sale in comparison with their counterparts in Sindh.

The farmers further pointed out that the Sindh agriculture department had failed to utilise Rs950 million earmarked for the installation of 250 solar-powered tube-wells in various districts of the province. Expressing fears of misappropriation, they asked the Sindh chief minister to take notice of this matter.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2015.