HYDERABAD, Dec 1: Strongly protesting against the decision of the sugar mills to reduce the price of sugarcane, the president of Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah, has urged the Sindh government to take strict action against sugar mills.

He was speaking at an urgent meeting of the chamber held here on Saturday.

He said that the government has fixed the minimum price of cane at Rs67 per 40 kg but the mill owners have taken a unilateral decision and fixed the price of sugarcane at Rs60 per 40 kg. He said this has created unrest and anger among the growers.

The meeting pointed out that the sugar mills had started crushing three weeks ago but growers who had supplied cane to the mills had not received payment till date.

It demanded that the outstanding dues of the growers should be paid immediately and in future, payment should be ensured on weekly basis.

It said that the federal government had already removed export duty on sugar and also increased import duty to discourage the import of sugar for the benefit of the sugar industry.

Under the circumstances, the meeting argued, there was no reason to reduce the price of sugarcane. It demanded that the payment of minimum price of sugarcane fixed by the government at Rs67 per 40 kg should be ensured failing which the growers reserved the right to protest.

Those who attended the meeting included Akhund Ghulam Mohammad Siddiqui, Anwar Bachani, Qazi Abdul Majeed, Mohammad Khan Sarejo, Qadir Bux Mari and others.

SAB: Sindh Abadgar Board has urged the Sindh government to urgently intervene in the brewing confrontation between the sugar industry and the growers over the refusal of the mill owners to pay the official minimum price of Rs67 per 40 kg to the cane growers.

In a letter addressed to the Sindh chief secretary on Saturday, a copy of which was also faxed to Dawn, the president of the Board, Mr Abdul Majeed Nizamani, said that PSMA southern zone had agreed to start the crushing by Nov 1, in case the growers agreed to the last season’s rates of Rs67 per 40 kg.

He said, the growers most reluctantly agreed to this proposal despite that the prices of agricultural inputs had increased by 40 per cent at the minimum.

He, however, said that the mill owners did not start the crushing by Nov 1 and only after 12 days of operating the mills threatened to stop the crushing with a view to forcing the growers to reduce the rate of cane. He said the mill owners have offered lame excuse of reduction in the price of sugar.

Referring to the PSMA’s annual reports of the last 12 years, Nizamani said that the average recovery of sugar stood at 8.67 per cent (Punjab 8.27 per cent, Sindh 9.463 per cent and NWFP 8.1 per cent). He said all canons of justice demand that Sindh should get the sugarcane at the rate of Punjab plus price of excess sugar produced from 40 kg of sugarcane.

He pointed out that the important factor is that the sugar prices since October 2007 have not been reduced whereas the prices of Ethanol plus molasses have increased manifold which are important by-products of sugarcane.

Nizamani urged the government to resolve the confrontation between the growers and the mill owners to protect the growers, consumers, labourers and transporters against the excesses of the sugar cartel.

He pointed out that due to bad cotton and rice crops, the farming community had suffered huge losses of Rs7.526 billion and Rs12.250 billion respectively and are under huge financial burden.

He further said that the price of DAP fertilizer has also been increased from Rs850 to Rs1,348 per bag.

He said due to the change in climatic, sugarcane crop had matured early and was attacked by diseases in southern Sindh.

He said if the cane crop was not harvested immediately, the national economy would receive a setback because the wheat sowing will also be reduced by 300,000 acres.