September 15, 2002	Sunday	Rajab 7, 1423

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MULTAN, Sept 14: Punjab has banned the use of jute bags for the cotton transportation from farms to ginneries in order to reduce contamination in the silver fibre.

Speaking at a press conference, provincial agriculture minister Syed Khursheed Zaman Qureshi said now cotton would be either packed in cotton clothes or carried in open vehicles, such as tractor-trolleys. He claimed the country had lost millions of rupees in the international market only due to contaminated cotton.

The minister said the crop condition at present was better as compared to the corresponding period last year. “The pest attack is less than the economic injury level. However, the humid weather is causing proliferation of while fly.” The minister suggested the farming community to remain vigilant in the coming four weeks to combat pest attacks timely.

Quoting figures of the federal commercial ministry, he said due to expansion in the textile industry the demand for cotton this year would be more than that of the expected domestic production.

Qureshi would not say how much cotton would have to be imported to bridge the demand-supply gap. “There is no yardstick to assess the expected cotton production. But rest assured that the government will not compromise on the interest of the growers.”

Also present on the occasion was provincial agriculture secretary Junaib Iqbal. He said though scientific efforts were underway to control the economically injurious pests in the cotton fields, he could not say with authority that it (the research) had met success.

He said the provincial government had decided to limit the number of cotton varieties to six from the next cotton season. He also floated the idea of sowing of one particular variety in one area to get uniform quality cotton.

Earlier, the minister presided over the weekly meeting of the Cotton Crop Management Group (CCMG). Insiders told Dawn that a lot time was wasted on debate that what should be the PH level in water to be mixed with the pesticides for application. They said that discussion was useless as the plant protection period was about to end.

The other important issue discussed in the CCMG meeting was about the alleged evasion of sales tax of millions of rupees on account of pesticides sale in Punjab this year. Some members of the CCMG questioned a provincial agriculture department order, allowing transportation of pesticides from distribution outlets to retail shops and consumers only on delivery notes. The minister and the secretary, however, reportedly denied issuing such an order. A number of agriculture department officials pointed out that they had been asked not to bother about the invoices during the physical checking of pesticides to assess whether GST had been paid.

It is learnt that the federal finance ministry had taken note of the ‘loose movement’ of consignments of pesticides in the Punjab merely against delivery notes, depriving the exchequer of millions of rupees under the GST head.

CUSTOM GINNING: The custom ginning committee meeting was also held on the same day with the agriculture minister in the chair. It was the last meeting on the subject. Representatives of various commercial banks, sales tax department and growers were present in the meeting besides the bureaucracy of the agriculture department.

The bankers and the sales tax department officials made it clear to the minister that they would handle the project if the government formed a separated cell. They said the financial institutions could work with the proposed cell through GST numbers as otherwise maintaining stray accounts would be difficult to manage.

At this, the provincial agriculture secretary came out with a novel idea that the federal government could be requested not to charge GST from growers on their lint cotton stocks. The secretary was told that in this way all the ginners would enlist themselves as growers to evade GST.

The minister finally told the meeting that the government would take a firm decision on the proposed custom ginning scheme very soon.

The idea of custom ginning is that growers may get ginned their phutti stocks from ginneries by paying the expenses to process them into lint and then market their lint stocks when they (growers) speculate the time as suitable.