HYDERABAD, Sept 25: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture has demanded that the government should hold a farmers’ conference to discuss problems confronting the community and find ways to resolve them.

The demand was made at a meeting of the chamber held here on Sunday.

Mir Murad Ali Khan Talpur presided over the meeting.

The meeting discussed growers’ problems and urged the government to stamp out unemployment in rural areas by directing banks to extend loans to livestock owners on easy instalments.

The meeting called for exemplary punishment for dealers and traders who were selling spurious pesticides.

It expressed concern over the drop in prices of cotton, appealing to the government to direct the Trading Corporation of Pakistan to buy cotton at official rates. The meeting regretted the fact that multinational companies were not providing jobs to local people.

The participants proposed that the government should develop freshwater lakes such as Keenjhar, Haleji and Kanroonjhar to meet a shortage of irrigation water. The meeting demanded that the department concerned should carry out desilting of water channels.

The department had not carried out desilting of channels for a long time as a result increasing layers of silt and sand had cut down their capacity.

ADMISSIONS: Admissions to all colleges affiliated with the University of Sindh would commence from October 15 and the annual examinations of 2006 would start from December 20.

A meeting of the principals of affiliated colleges presided over by the Vice-Chancellor Dr Mazharul Haq Siddiqui decided on Monday that annual examinations (2006) of BA, BSc, BCom, BSW, BSc Home Economics Part-I and Part-II and MA Previous and Final would commence from December 20.

The meeting approved extending the last date for the payment of examination fee without late fee up to October 11 and decided that admissions to affiliated colleges for bachelors and masters classes would start from October 15. The admissions process would continue till January 10, 2007.

WORKSHOP: The provincial training cell of the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority on Thursday organized a training course on “efficient use of irrigation water for agriculture”.

The inaugural session was held at the Institute of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering of the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology Jamshoro.