THATTA, Aug 26: Local activists and leaders of the ruling party are reaping windfall profits from illegal sale of fertiliser at exorbitant rates in collusion with dealers and district government officials, allege growers.

Syed Shahzad Hussain Shah, president of the Thatta chapter of Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, blamed the new system for the present state of affairs.

He said the system developed in the wake of a directive to all the district coordination officers from the Sindh chief minister asking them to form two-man monitoring committees with DDOs of revenue as head and mukhtiarkars as members to ensure uninterrupted supply of fertiliser to growers at official rate.

The committees were authorised to conduct raids on warehouses, confiscate the hoarded fertiliser and distribute it among growers at official rate of Rs625 per bag.

Later, the administration involved PPP leaders in the process to quieten down growers’ complaints about unavailability, shortage and sale of fertiliser at high rates, creating an opportunity for PPP leaders to take undue advantage of the situation.

Mr Shah said the system would have run smoothly if the PPP leaders had not involved themselves personally in the process.

DDO of revenue Mohammad Khan Jarwar said that the DCO had held a meeting a week ago with DDOs of revenue, EDO of irrigation Vikkio Chohan, representatives of dealers and growers, majority of whom belonged to PPP, and asked the growers’ leaders to point out the dealers who had hoarded the fertiliser.

When dealers objected that it was difficult for them to tell the genuine farmer from the fake, the DCO verbally asked the leaders to issue chits or lists of genuine farmers to the dealers to help end the crisis, he said.

Hassan Khwaja, president of Abadgars Welfare Association, said as per rules the dealers of FFC, NFC and Pak Arab Fertiliser Company were bound to unload fertiliser at their fixed warehouses but over the past few weeks, they were dumping fertiliser in remote village sites or selling it directly to traders out of the district, leading to artificial shortage of the essential agricultural input.

He said that urea fertiliser was now being sold at far off village warehouses through brokers at the rate of Rs900 to Rs1,000 per bag as against its official rate of Rs625 per bag.

He said that a majority of sugarcane growers had switched over to paddy crop this Kharif season and sowed the crop on 160,000 hectares, which needed fertiliser at this stage.

PML-Q MNA Syed Ayaz Ali Shah Shirazi alleged that the committees had succumbed to influence of ‘jiyalas’, majority of whom had stocked urea bags in remote villages after buying it at official rate under fictitious names. They were now selling the much-needed agricultural input to small growers at exorbitant rates, he alleged.

He said the absence of check and balance had helped profiteers to reap windfall benefits. An acre of paddy crop required two to three bags of urea and its unavailability would have bad impact on per acre yield, he said.

A number of small growers including Comrade Ghulam Rasool, Niaz Zaur and Ayaz Shah confirmed that they had bought fertiliser at Rs1,000 per bag from illegal warehouses in Banhoon and Belo villages ‘run by local PPP leaders.’

DCO Thatta was not available for comments.