HYDERABAD, April 23: The Sindh Balochistan Rice Mills Association on Wednesday termed the government ban on the export of non-Basmati (coarse) rice unjustified and feared the country would be deprived of precious foreign exchange if the ban was not lifted.

In a communication to the federal ministers for finance, commerce, food and agriculture, a copy of which was faxed to Dawn, the president of the association, Arif Hussain Mahessar, said that the expected export proceeds from non-Basmati rice would be $1 billion.

The lifting of ban would greatly help the rice industry and the growers, who had been facing many hardships due to undue increase in the essential agricultural inputs, Mr Mahessar said.

Banning the export of rice at the time when the growers were preparing their lands for sowing new crop, would discourage the rice growers, he said, adding that price of non-Basmati rice in international market had crossed $1,000 per ton.

He suggested that the ban on the export of coarse rice should be lifted and an export tax should be introduced to provide subsidy to the poor people. Mr Mahessar urged the government to take the stakeholders onboard in the process of framing policies and regretted that unfortunately, many policy matters was decided in haste without taking into account ground realities and without taking the stakeholders onboard.

Pakistan produced 2.2 million tons of non-Basmati (coarse) rice of which 1.8 million tons were exported, 400,000 tons were locally consumed and also used as animal feed, he said.

PRESS CONFERENCE: The president of the Mirpurkhas chapter of Sindh People’s Students Federation, Junaid Iqbal Buland said on Wednesday that he was subjected to torture during his four and a half years incarceration but he refused to change loyalty.