BADIN, June 11: Dust storm which has hit Badin district since Friday lost its intensity on Monday but in meantime it has damaged standing crops in the fields. The growers fear that if dusty winds continue, diseases will attack the crops and they will loose weight.

The representatives of farmers' associations demanded immediate launching of a crop insurance scheme in Sindh in general and in the coastal districts of Badin and Thatta in particular.

Laar Abadgar Association president Abdul Jabbar Gopang told this correspondent that Badin district had been frequently hit by natural calamities and cyclones and water shortage had made its population pauper.

He said that after failure of Left Bank Outfall Drain, growers passed every year with the worries whether crops could be saved from floods and other natural and handmade calamities, particularly during monsoon season. No grower was sure of taking benefits of their crops for which he spent a lot on the account of different inputs, he said.