KARACHI, Nov 3: A meeting of sugarcane growers and sugar mills on Wednesday decided that sugarcane crushing would start after Eid in Sindh as crop was not available for crushing purposes, official sources said.

The meeting was chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Dr. Arbab Ghulam Rahim at Chief Minister House and senior officials of Sindh Agriculture Department also attended the meeting.

Representatives of Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) Sindh zone told the meeting that growers were not supplying sugarcane to the mills.

Growers pointed out that presently farm workers were busy in cotton picking and they could not find enough persons to harvest sugarcane crop.

On this occasion, the chief minister expressed his displeasure over the non-availability of sugarcane to the mills and said that growers let him down by not fulfilling their promise.

He said that he, on behalf of growers, had committed with the sugar mills that sugarcane would be supplied to them so they should start crushing from October 15, 2004. But the failure of growers to supply sugarcane to the mills in the month of November 2004 has disappointed him, he added.

Sugar mill owners said that mills have heated their boilers and they were incurring losses on account of fuel burning without any crushing.

They urged the chief minister to extend the sugarcane crushing season till Eid. They pointed out that the sugar mill labourers, most of them live in northern areas have also refused to come to Sindh during Ramazan.

Sugar mill owners raised the issue of sugarcane prices during the meeting. The chief minister assured them that sugar price would be linked with sugarcane prices and decision in this regard would be taken after Eid.-APP