May 29, 2002	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 16,1423

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MULTAN, May 28: Apart from power supply and telecommunication systems, mango crop was devastated by the dust storm which was followed by downpour on Monday night.

The wind speed was recorded at 138.6km per hour by the local Met office, while the rainfall was 40mm. Most of the city roads were blocked by the uprooted electricity and telephone poles and felled trees. Low-lying areas were inundated with rain water.

Power supply to many localities which was disconnected as the storm started, could not be restored even at the time of filing this report on Tuesday evening.

According to a Multan telecom region press release, the storm damaged the microwave communication system of the PTCL in Vehari, Khanewal, Bahawalnagar and Bahawalpur. The communication system had been restored in most of the affected areas while it would be completed within 24 hours.

The mango crop was badly hit by the storm. The storm caused heavy drop of the fruit which was about to ripen, at a premature stage.

The loss was irreparable, a grower said in the outskirts of the city. Apart from fruit loss, scores of trees were uprooted due to the storm.

“Devastation of mango orchards on such a large-scale will probably create shortage of the fruit this year,” a broker at the local fruit and vegetable market said.

Mango Growers Association president Syed Zahid Gardezi said the farming community could face the natural calamities only when the government also shouldered their losses.

He claimed that hundreds of mango trees had been uprooted while the fruit had dropped considerably. Growers were already facing the problem of water shortage, he added.

He demanded that the government should put off recovery of water cess and agriculture income tax from mango growers.

KISSAN BOARD: The Kissan Board Pakistan has demanded stern action against Trading Corporation of Pakistan highups for sabotaging the economic revival programme of the government by aggravating the cotton crisis.

In a joint press statement, KBP’s Khanewal president Haq Nawaz and secretary-general Hikmat Khan said despite assurances by President Musharraf that the TCP would procure all the cotton, it had failed to meet the target.

They claimed that phutti worth Rs3 billion was still lying with growers while ginners had refused to pay their dues until the disposal of their lint cotton stocks.

KBP leaders blamed the All-Pakistan Textile Millers Association and the TCP for the continuous cotton crisis, saying “the millers have broken the back of growers by importing 1.2 million bales”.

They said the woes of growers had further aggravated with low wheat prices as compared to the official procurement price of Rs300 per 40kg. “On the one hand, the farmers are facing resource-constraints while on the other, the financial institutions have launched recovery drives, and in their ‘hot pursuit’ they are arresting growers for petty outstanding dues,” they said.

KBP leaders urged the government to procure all the cotton stocks and announce a relief package for the economic revival of the farming community.

BIG RESERVOIRS: The Pakistan Engineering Forum has stressed the need for the construction of big reservoirs to address the water crisis in the country.

PEC central president Syed Imtiaz Husain said small dams were not the matching answer to the grave water crisis. He said to abandon the Kalabagh dam project, some 750 small dams would have to be constructed.

He urged the political parties to allow the construction of Kalabagh dam and all other such projects for which feazibility reports had already been completed.