HYDERABAD: Growers want tax remission, relief package: Water shortage
By Our Correspondent
HYDERABAD, Jan 26: The Sindh Abadgar Board has hailed the chief minister’s statement regarding provision of relief and remission in agricultural taxes for the calamity-hit areas.
In a statement, issued here on Sunday, a spokesman of the SAB said that the statement of Sindh Chief Minister Ali Mohammad Mahar, made after inaugurating the desilting campaign at Dumbalo on Jan 25, was not only encouraging but it also showed his concern and interest in resolving the peoples’ problems.
The board appealed the Sindh chief minister to emulate his counterpart in Balochistan, who had recently announced a relief package for the calamity-hit areas of Balochistan.
It said that the agriculture taxes of the calamity-hit areas should be remitted without any further delay.
The board stressed the need for announcing an early decision in this regard, keeping in view the fact that the entire lower region of Sindh — including Badin, Thatta, Mirpurkhas and Umerkot — and other areas like Dadu, had been facing greater water shortage, as compared to the upper regions of the Indus basin.
The spokesman said that the farmers of tail-end areas of different waterways were the worst sufferers and cited examples of the Saeed distributary of the Massu sub-division and Chakker distributary of the Bakairani sub-division, where only 10 to 15 per cent of arable land could have been cultivated.
The board said that the agriculture sector of the province was at the verge of destruction due to persistent water shortage for the past many years.
Referring to the statement of former Sindh finance minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh that 85 per cent of the population in rural Sindh was living below poverty line, the SAB said that although two of the main causes for the prevailing poverty in Sindh were acute shortage of water and persistent drought but factors like high cost of farm inputs, low yield, low prices of crops and unfavourable government policies had also wreaked havoc on the farming community.
The board said that according to an official assessment, the farmers in Sindh had suffered a loss of Rs27 billion in 2002 and 2003, adding that this year the losses could amount to a staggering Rs23 billion because of failure of crops, and the unresolved crisis of sugarcane purchase price.
The board criticized the Tapedars (revenue officials) for serving notices on farmers with amounts twice or thrice above the actual recoverable amounts in the circumstances, adding that this should be stopped immediately.
SURPRISE VISITS: Members of the affiliation committee of the University of Sindh will pay surprise visits to colleges, affiliated with the university, reports our Bureau.
This decision was taken at a meeting of the committee, held on Saturday. It also decided to adopt measures to improve education.
