HYDERABAD, Nov 14: The Sindh Abadgar Board has appealed to the Sindh government to take notice of failure of the sugar mill owners to announce as to when will they begin sugarcane crushing season.

In a letter, addressed to the Governor of Sindh, the secretary-general of the SAB, Mehmood Nawaz Shah, pointed out that according to law, the sugarcane crushing should begun by Oct 15, but the government had issued notification that sugar mills should commence the crushing season by Nov 15. Even then, he deplored, sugar mill owners had not announced when they would commence the crushing season.

He said that sugar mills in Punjab and the NWFP had already begun the crushing season.

He said that the commencement of sugarcane crushing season was dependent on maturity of sugarcane crop, sucrose content and other factors, like wheat sowing season, and added that it was seldom dependent on stock position, as in commercial operation stock position varied from season to season.

He said that sugarcane crop in Sindh was more than 12 months old and was deteriorating with every passing day. He added that by middle of November sucrose content reached optimum level and was higher in Sindh as compared to the other provinces.

He further said that the wheat sowing season was between Nov 15 and Dec 15 and added that due to shortage of water, the farmers had spent huge amount on electricity, water lifting and other charges, to keep sugarcane crop green.

Thus the growers were caught up in cash flow problems, he said and added that once the harvesting began, it took two to three weeks before the revenue was generated.

He said that the sugar mills had also not paid the price of sugarcane to growers for the last year crop, which had added to the predicament of the farmers.

At this juncture when the federal government had decided to support the sugar industry by exporting sugar to Afghanistan and provide the industrialists with credit through the State Bank of Pakistan, there was absolutely no justification in delaying the crushing season, he said.

He cautioned that if the vicious cycle was allowed to continue, the sugarcane area in Sindh would be further reduced and the sugar mills with excess capacity would be left with no cane to crush.

The SAB leader asked the government to take notice of the grave situation and convince the sugar mill owners to commence the crushing season according to the notification.