August 11, 2006	Friday	Rajab 15, 1427

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SWABI, Aug 10: The Anjuman-i-Kashtkaran (AK) NWFP and the Tobacco Dealers Association (TDA) NWFP have demanded of the federal and NWFP governments to convene meeting of the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB) within a week for considering farmers’ problems.

The two bodies warned that if the government failed to call PTB’s meeting they would stage protest demonstrations across the tobacco growing districts of the province.

TDA’s president Iftikhar Ahmad Khan and AK’s general secretary Ismail Jan Khan said this while addressing a press conference here on Thursday.

They further threatened to give call for poppy cultivation in the tobacco growing areas if their demands were not met. They said they may also launch a campaign against multinational and national companies exploiting tobacco growers.

Their main demand is that the national and multinational buyers should increase tobacco prices while keeping in view escalating prices of pesticides, fertilisers and different commodities. They demand average prices of Rs60 per kilogram for un-graded tobacco.

“The Rs1 billion tobacco cess which remains with the NWFP government should be spent on construction of rain-devastated roads in the tobacco growing districts,” said Ismail Jan Khan.

All the officials in the PTB, he said, were corrupt, incompetent and absolutely unaware of the tobacco growers’ problems.

The law regulating tobacco marketing says that prices fixed for a year should more than those of the previous years. However, there is no clause which determines prices of tobacco in accordance with the prices of essential commodities, pesticides and fertilisers.

“If buyer companies increase prices by just one paisa, they fulfil legal obligation but that do not meet demands of the growers,” said Mr Iftikhar.

The companies, he said, create such situation wherein they can purchase tobacco according to their terms and conditions.

They said they had convened a meeting of the AK, the Sarhad Chamber of Agriculture, the Kisan Board and others on August 12 to chalk out a future line of action.

Meanwhile president of the Ghulam Kashthkar, Prof Manwar Khan, has said that the companies purchased a billion kilogram of tobacco after declaring it ‘surplus tobacco’ during the last one-decade. He demanded that the government should constitute a committee to investigate as to why tobacco buyers raised cry of surplus tobacco.

Tobacco growers have constituted an eight-member action committee to coordinate among all unions of tobacco.