HYDERABAD, April 25: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture has expressed concern over imposition of section, 144 CrPC, by the Sindh government under which inter-district movement of wheat has been banned.

A weekly meeting of the chamber, held here on Sunday and presided over by Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah, termed the ban illegal and demanded that the Sindh government should lift it immediately.

Taking serious notice of irregular water rotation programme announced by the irrigation department throughout the province specially in the Naseer division, the chamber urged the government to announce a viable rotation programme in order to minimize the adverse affect on crops.

Meanwhile, Sindh Abadgar Board President Abdul Majeed Nizamani also demanded that the ban on wheat movement imposed by the federal, Sindh and Punjab governments should be withdrawn.

In a statement faxed to Dawn, he termed the ban illegal, violation of international laws and principles of free trade. Mr Nizamani said that poor growers of the Badin district were stopped on the roads and wheat was purchased from them by force. He termed the act shameful and tyrannical.

He said that the government could step in and purchase the crop to protect interests of growers only in case its market price fell short of support price. Mr Nizamani said that if a poor grower was paid Rs5 more than the support price, the government could not tolerate it.

He said that the growers were willing to sell wheat to the government but on the pattern of India and other countries which purchased wheat at market rates. He wondered if the government was aware of the fact that the poor growers were not getting even Rs20 per maund on their onion crop.

He said why was the government oblivious of the fact that the sugar mills of Sindh were withholding a huge amount of Rs5 billion which they were legally bound to pay to the cane growers.

Mr Nizamani also drew the attention of the government to the undeniable fact that fertilizer was sold at higher price and that the poor growers had sustained a loss of Rs15 billion last year due to the sale of adulterated pesticides.

He urged the government to explain what corrective measures it had taken in this regard. He said that the ban on the movement of wheat would have a devastating affect on the national economy.