HYDERABAD, Oct 28: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) on Sunday demanded that the government should fix minimum support price for wheat at Rs550 per 40 kilogramme and ensure that the growers got quality seed and help to grow more wheat.

The chamber’s meeting at the Agriculture Complex, which was presided over by its head Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah, also urged the government to direct the sugar mill owners to start crushing no later than Nov 1 so that the growers, after harvesting sugarcane, could prepare their land for sowing wheat.

He called upon sugar mills owners to pay dues to the growers every week because the poor growers were always short of funds. The mills deprived cane growers of 10 maunds of sugarcane on the supply of each 100 maunds due to so-called computerised scales and the growers had to suffer huge losses due to this manipulated cut in the weight of their crop, he said.

The mills should also keep weights and measures ready at the scales to be put to use in case of any complaint about computerised scales, he suggested.

The meeting advised the growers to send their problems in writing to the chamber so that they could be discussed with the provincial secretaries for irrigation and agriculture who were scheduled to meet with the executive committee of the chamber on Nov 4.

Mir Murad Ali Khan Talpur, Agha Nasrullah, Mir Imdad Talpur, Syed Aijaz Nabi Shah and Mohammad Khan Sarejo were among those who attended the meeting.

TOOL DOWN STRIKE: The employees of Water and Power Development Authority would observe tool down strike in all the powerhouses of the country on Oct 30 in protest against the bifurcation and privatisation of the authority, seizure of allowances for past five years and non-payment of Eid bonus, said the chairman of All-Pakistan Powerhouses Administrative Committee, Mohammad Sajan Panhwar, on Sunday.