HYDERABAD, Dec 2: The Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) on Saturday expressed grave concern over the decision of president and federal cabinet to go ahead with the proposed construction of Kalabagh and Akhori dams without taking into consideration the resolutions passed by Sindh and NWFP assemblies against these projects.

The meeting of the board’s working committee presided over by Abdul Majeed Nizamani threw into question the president and federal cabinet’s power to take decisions about such highly sensitive issues as the construction of dams.

Had the government got the dams’ feasibility reports prepared according to the international standards keeping in view the projects’ technical, financial, political, geographical, cultural, legal and environmental aspects, the meeting questioned.

The committee wondered if the government had taken any steps to raise the storage capacity of existing reservoirs and ensure optimum and scientific use of existing water resources and appealed to the president and prime minister, federal cabinet, parliament and provincial assemblies to review the decision in the larger interest of the country.

About the sugarcane crushing crisis, the committee expressed disappointment over the mill- owners’ attitude and the government’s handling of the looming crisis and opined that the main reason, which had led to the crisis, was increase in the quality premium from 35 paisas to 50 paisas on the extraction of sucrose.

The Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) had challenged the raise in the quality premium but the Sindh High Court had decided in favour of growers in 2003. The association then filed an appeal against the decision in the Supreme Court which had been pending for three years, the meeting said.

The farmers blamed wrong policies of the government, acute shortage of irrigation water and steep rise in the prices of inputs, for decrease in the sugarcane production to eight million tons from 15 million tons and demanded that the prime minister and chief minister should request the apex court to decide the PSMA’s appeal as soon as possible.

The case had caused a huge amount of Rs6.5 billion to get stuck, which the mills owed to the growers, the meeting said, urging the mill owners to give up the policy of confrontation with government and farmers and demanded that the government should ensure water was supplied to Kotri Barrage command area in the months of October, November, February and March.

The meeting stressed the need for forming a committee comprising mill owners, agricultural scientists and farmers to help discover a new variety of sugarcane, which gave more recovery with less water. It suggested that the entire amount from road cess should be spent on the research for such a variety.

The meeting said that new varieties of sugarcane would also enable the mill owners to start crushing season in October and help raise the cultivation of wheat and sunflower.

In the meantime, the government should not allow installation of any new sugar mills, reduce import of sugar and other agricultural goods and help bring down the prices of inputs, the committee advised.

Referring to widening trade deficit this year, which the committee blamed on the government’s anti-agriculture policies, the meeting urged the government to pay attention to agriculture research.