SWABI, Feb 16: Heavy rains have delayed tilling for the plantation of seedlings of white patta tobacco and Virginia tobacco in the NWFP, at a time when buyers have increased the demand for the current year.

Sources in the Pakistan Tobacco Company and Lakson Tobacco Company told Dawn that the delay in the plantation of the crop would slash its production, missing the expected targets and creating numerous problems for the big companies and small cigarette manufactures.

The 15 tobacco purchasing companies, the sources said, had increased the requirement of Virginia tobacco by 18.98 per cent, dark air-cured 107.by 12 per cent, whita patta tobacco 120 by 48 per cent and barley tobacco by 10.31 per cent for the current year. The buyers, they said, had purchased only 34 million-kg flue-cured Virginia in the year 2004, but the quota for only this category was 59.842 million-kg.