HYDERABAD, April 24: The Sindh Abadgar Board on Thursday appealed sugar mills to refund the road cess surcharge to growers in conformity with the decision of the Sindh High Court.

In a statement issued here, SAB president Abdul Majeed Nizamani called upon mills to follow the example of the Habib Sugar Mills, Nawabshah, in this regard, adding that the mill had honoured the SHC decision by refunding Rs11.698 million to growers from time to time.

The Sindh government, he said, had levied a road cess surcharge in 1991-92 at the rate of 15 paisa per 40 kilogrammes of sugarcane.

According to the notification, the payment of surcharge was to be shared equally by growers and the mill owners.

The Board, he said, had challenged the notification in the SHC through a constitutional petition and, subsequently, had directed the sugar mills to refund the amount of the surcharge recovered by them.

In pursuance of the court’s decision, the provincial cane commissioner — vide a letter dated Oct 21, 2002 — had also directed the sugar mills to refund the surcharge amount to growers.

Mr Nizamani reminded the sugar mill owners that their constitutional petition about the quality premium, filed in 1998- 99, had been rejected by the SHC on March 27, 2003.

He called upon the sugar mills to honour the court’s decision regarding payment of quality premium for the crushing seasons between 1998-99 and 2002-2003 to growers.