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LAHORE, Oct 23: Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi said on Thursday that an inquiry would be launched into the current cotton crop crisis.
Talking to reporters at a dinner hosted by PML-Q’s ex-MNA Mian Munir Ahmad at his Model Town residence on Thursday night, where he was the chief guest, the chief minister said that a joint strategy would be evolved in consultation with the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA) to ensure that cotton production was not affected in future.
He said that disease-resistant, high-yield cotton varieties would be evolved and cultivated from now on.
Answering a question, he said the Punjab government was poised to set up an industrial estate near Lahore exclusively for garments, where only women would be employed.
PML-Q leaders Lt-Gen Majid Malik (retired), ex-MNA Tariq Banday, Lahore Nazim Amer Mehmood, FPCCI Chairman Iftikhar Ali Malik, former minister Meraj Din, provincial minister Arshad Lodhi, PPP leader Mian Misbahur Rehman, businessmen, traders and industrialists were present on the occasion.
FAP PLEA: Predicting a shortfall of a million bales of cotton this year, the Farmers’ Associates Pakistan has demanded an inquiry into the huge loss.
FAP chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi, while speaking at a press conference on Thursday, refused to buy the official version that the crop had fallen victim to unprecedented rains this year. “The monsoon rains are as old a phenomenon as the recorded history of the region,” he said.
He alleged that it was the result of mismanagement by those in charge of the crop. Two bodies, Cotton Crop Management Group and Working Group on Cotton, formed by the Punjab government, had no coordination between them. “No one knew who was doing what during the season. And the result is confusion,” he lamented.
Mr Qureshi said the cotton crop was hit by three types of crisis. There was a severe shortage of some of the pesticides in the market. The price of available pesticides went up by, in some cases, 300 per cent, taking these out of the reach of most of the farmers. And most of the pesticides available in the market were spurious, whose repeated sprays could not fetch the desired results, he said, adding “all these factors have ruined the farmers.” The crop, which looked healthy in the beginning of August, slipped out of the hands of farmers by September. He said the loss would hurt the country’s economy for which a thorough inquiry must be initiated and those found guilty be taken to task.
Besides conducting an inquiry, the government should announce a compensation package for the affected farmers, he said, suggesting that recovery of loans in the worst-hit areas be deferred and mark-up written off.
The FAP chairman claimed that the ministry of finance and the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association were busy conspiring a change in the cotton policy to ban its export. “Any such matter must be taken to parliament. Attempt at changing the policy outside parliament will be resisted,” he said.
The government, he said, had also failed to make millers start the sugar cane crushing season in time. “The sugar cane crop is ready, but the mills are silent. This can further hurt the farmers and country because if they fail to harvest sugar cane in time, they will not be able to sow wheat timely. This will disturb the whole agricultural pattern and push Pakistan into food security crisis,” feared the farmers’ leader.
