-Govt agreed to implement official sugarcane rate: SARC leader

KARACHI: The sugarcane growers march, taken out from Hyderabad to Karachi against the non-implementation of sugarcane rate of Rs182 per 40kg, was stopped at Fawara Chowk from proceeding towards the Sindh Assembly here on Monday.

Around 2000 sugarcane growers, including females, under the banner of Sindh Agriculture Research Council (SARC) and led by council leaders Ali Palah and Jamal Mehmood Khuhro, reached Karachi Press Club where they held a protest demonstration and attempted to proceed towards the Sindh Assembly, however, heavy contingents of police stopped them at Fawara Chowk.

Earlier, they were stopped at Tool Plaza on the Super Highway.

“The government representatives contacted us and arranged a meeting with Sindh ministers Nasir Hussain Shah and Ismael Rahu, and Sindh Agriculture Secretary,” SARC leader Jamal Mehmood Khuhro told PPI.

He said that the growers’ delegation comprising eight SARC leaders held a meeting with the two ministers and the secretary and presented them their charter of demands. “The ministers assured the delegation that sugarcane rate of Rs182 per 40kg would be implemented within a week. Later, the growers withdrew the protest,” he said.

However, Khuhro added that they would resume the protest in case of empty promises.

The growers told PPI that the sugar mills in Sindh had started work late while the millers were not paying the rates announced by the government, both pressure tactics to make more profit while growers suffer.

They said that Rs130 per 40kg rate of sugarcane was being paid as compared to Rs182 official rate, which was a great injustice with them. “We also suffered heavy losses last year, they said and added that the prices of fertilizer and cost of labour had risen to a high level; therefore, the government should bound millers to pay the Rs182 rate with immediate effect.