MULTAN, March 9: The Punjab Mango Production and Marketing Committee has underlined the need to regulate the nurseries that provide mango plants to discourage plantation of varieties susceptible to various diseases.

As the first measure in this regard, the committee has recommended registration of the nurseries, Khwaja Muhammad Shoaib, the committee chairman told Dawn on Friday.

He said registration of nurseries was required to grow true-to-type fruit. He said the nursery frequently supplied lots having unfavourable genetic characteristics of the wrong varieties.

He said regulation had become even more important in view of the government’s emphasis on increasing export of the fruit. Most of the mango exporting countries, he said, promoted one or two varieties for export. We should follow the strategy to increase our share of mango export in the world market, he said. “We cannot rely on the delicious taste of Pakistani mango alone.”

Mr Shoaib said that the Production and Marketing Committee had recommended some generic and branded insecticides and fungicides for mango orchards to rationalize the use of chemicals according to international requirements. So far, he said, the pesticides firms had been promoting the chemicals left over in their stocks after the cotton season. He said most of the pesticides meant for the cotton plant had a very harmful reside when sprayed on mango orchards.

He said changes in the national flag carrier’s freight rates, too, affected the exporters’ business plans. PIA, he said, should announce in March its freight tariff for the entire season.

Khwaja Shoaib made some interesting revelations about the way landlords and grower operated. He claimed that 90 per cent of the owners of mango orchards in the Punjab handed over their farms to lessees or contractors well before the stage of plant protection. In nearly 30 per cent cases, he said, the orchards were leased for four to five years.

The contractors are often confused with brokers who market the fruit. Unlike the Punjab, dealers in Sindh purchase the rights only for the trees that have borne fruit. The absentee landlords, he said, were the main hurdle in the way of ensuring quality production.

He rejected the plea that growers could export the fruit on their own. They had failed to do so even in the local market.

He said the exporters should buy the fruit directly from the farm to minimize post-harvest handling. He said the Production and Marketing Committee had decided to hold its meetings independently. These had, therefore been held in Shujaabad, Multan, Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan. The next meeting of the committee, he said, was scheduled to be held in Muzaffargarh on March 18.

Murder case:: The Multan police have registered a case under anti-terrorism act here on Saturday against two unidentified activists of banned Lashkar-i-Jhangvi for killing a retired bank officer.

Sayeed Ghulam Panjtan Kazmi was sitting in his shop in New Gulgasht Colony on Friday when two gunmen shot and injured him and fled from the scene. He sustained two bullet injuries in his head and in his temple and succumbed to his injuries while being taken to hospital.