HYDERABAD, March 16: A joint meeting of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture and the Sindh Abadgar Board expressed fear on Sunday that the unreasonable increase in fuel prices would destroy economically the growers who were already under financial crunch due to non-payment of cane price by sugar mill owners.

The meeting presided over by the chamber’s senior vice-president Mir Murad Ali Talpur demanded that the government should provide diesel, petrol and electricity to growers at subsidised rates.

The meeting attended by the president of Sindh Abadgars Board Abdul Majeed Nizamani, Akhund Ghulam Mohammad Siddiqui, Dr Shahnawaz Shah and a large number of growers belonging to the two organisations urge the government to fix minimum procurement price of wheat at Rs1,000 per 40 kilogramme (maund) to check the grain’s smuggling to India.

The participants expressed fear if the minimum procurement price was not fixed at Rs1,000 per maund, it would be smuggled to India by July this year, leading to an increase in the price of flour to Rs40 per kg.

The flour, which was staple food for the rich and poor alike, would disappear from the market and cause a repeat of the flour crisis, the country had just suffered.

They said that if the government failed to take preventive measures, no one would be able to stop smuggling of wheat to India. Keeping in view the rate of Indian currency, the price of wheat in Pakistan was much less, they said. As a result, the government would have to spend huge amount of foreign exchange on the import of wheat to meet domestic needs, they said.

They expressed grave concern over shortage of water in Tarbela and Mangla dams and feared that if the situation did not improve, the Kharif crops would be seriously affected and the tail-end growers of Sindh would be have to go without water.

PHRF: Activists of Pakistan Human Rights Forum staged a demonstration outside the press club on Sunday in protest against price hike, lawlessness and unreasonable increase in fuel price.

The forum’s chairman Mehboob Sangi, vice-chairman Abdul Ghani Khoso and other leaders said that the prices of essential consumer goods had gone through the roof and out of the reach of the poor families who were literally starving for food.

They blamed inefficiency of the caretaker government for uncontrolled price hike, growing lawlessness, highway robberies and street crime and said the suicide attacks had further created a sense of insecurity among people.

They demanded that the next government should give top priority to the problem of price hike and take effective measures to control lawlessness.

JUP: The senior vice-president of Jamiat Ulema-i-Pakistan Sahibzada Abul Khair Muhammad Zubair has strongly criticised increase in fuel prices and said that President Musharraf and his caretaker government were busy hurling bombs of price hike at the poor even at the fag end of their rule.

In a statement faxed to Dawn on Sunday, he said that price hike and lawlessness had made people’s life miserable and forced 80 per cent of population to live below poverty line. He wondered how the new government would be able to tackle the important issues.