HYDERABAD, Nov 18: The Sindh Abadgar Board President Abdul Majeed Nizamani on Tuesday criticised a proposal for taxing agriculture sector and said that any new tax would completely destroy the sector.

Mr Nizamani said in a press statement that levy of agriculture tax by the federation would also be in violation of the Constitution because only the provincial governments were authorised to levy this tax.

He argued that the growers were already paying GST on pesticides, fertilisers, agricultural machinery, oil, electricity etc and any new tax on agriculture would be tantamount to its destruction.

He urged the federal government to place the issue before the parliament for approval and said to the international financing agencies that the conditions they were imposing on Pakistan amounted to direct interference in the internal affairs of the country.

He feared that growers were not in a position to pay any more taxes and if the government did impose the tax it would have to import food items in future.

He urged the international financial institutions to realise ground realities and pointed out that in 2006-07, India had granted Rs643 billion subsidy to its growers on fertiliser, water charges and electricity in addition to allocating a huge amount for agriculture research. It was the reason behind India’s becoming self-sufficient in food items and being a leader in exporting them, Mr Nizamani said.

He said that before imposing any new tax on agriculture, the matter should be thoroughly discussed in the provincial assemblies.

SCA: The Badin chapter of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture at a meeting on Tuesday expressed grave concern over delay in setting up rice purchase centres by Passco in the rice growing areas.

The meeting chaired by the chamber’s district president, Mohammad Khan Sarejo, observed that the managing director of Passco had assured that rice purchasing centres would be set up soon in Sindh but no centre had been established in any part of the province up till this day.

The meeting complained that the rice mills were fleecing the growers by purchasing rice at Rs550 to Rs600 per maund and proposed the government export rice to end hegemony of rice mill owners.

BALAK MELA: Monthly Gul Phul, a children’s magazine brought out by Sindhi Adabi Board Jamshoro, is organising “All Sindh Balak Mela” on Sunday (Nov 23) to celebrate the International Children’s Day.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the magazine’s editor Ms Najma Panhwar said that Sindh Minister for Education Pir Mazharul Haq would inaugurate the event.

The All-Sindh Balak Mela was aimed at promoting co-curricular activities among school going children of the province. A large number of students of primary and secondary schools of public and private sectors would participate in the Mela, she said.

Cash awards and appreciation certificates would be distributed among winners and shields would be awarded to various schools for good performance, she said. The board was going to organise the Mela first time after 1963.

Sindhi Language Authority Secretary Taj Joyo, meanwhile, announced that a seminar

on “The Importance of Children’s Literature in Sindhi” would be held on Thursday to mark the International Children Day.

He said that noted intellectual and writer Mohammad Ibrahim Joyo would preside over the seminar in which leading scholars and writers would present their papers.