MULTAN, Jan 29: Sugarcane farmers are facing difficulty in selling their crop in Rahim Yar Khan, Multan, Muzaffargarh, Rajanpur, Lodhran and Layyah districts of southern Punjab because of the millers’ `monopoly’.

There are 10 sugar mills in these districts — four in Rahim Yar Khan, three in Muzaffargarh and one each in Rajanpur, Lodhran and Layyah. The Multan district has no sugar mill.

The mills in these districts, except Layyah, have adopted the permit policy to purchase the crop. Under this policy, only those farmers can sell their crop to mills who have secured prior permits for the purpose.

“It’s not an easy task to get a permit. You should have a recommendation from a political or influential figure,” said farmer Muhammad Sharif Dhareja of Rahim Yar Khan district’s Dhareja Nagar.

“The staff of these mills do not issue permits to farmers until they `please’ them, and those who luckily get permits are given specific dates to transport their crops to the mills,” he said.

“When you bring your crop to the mill you have to queue up and wait for four to seven days to reach the mills gate. Despite all this, the millers do not pay the farmers on the spot. Mostly, the millers pay the farmers after a month, once again on the interference of an influential personality,” he said.

He said Rahim Yar Khan district had bumper crop this year, but the farmers were being ‘punished’ for this.

Kisan Board’s Rajanpur representative Rashid Khan Langah said the permits were being used as a political tool, adding the only sugar mill in district was refusing to issue permits to farmers who did not have political references.

He said the cane crushing season would start from Oct 15, but the mills had delayed the purchase and were causing a loss to farmers.

Sources told Dawn that last year mill owners from Muzaffargarh district offered Rs80 million to then district nazim Abdul Qayyum Jatoi to impose a ban on inter-district movement of cane, but he refused. Jatoi’s act angered Multan district nazim

Mian Faisal Mukhtar who owned a sugar mill in Muzaffargarh.

Farmers’ representative Dr Suhail Alam said millers were blackmailing the farmers by tempering with the weigh machines or by delaying payments.

Former Layyah tehsil nazim Malik Manzoor Jauta said although the only mill in the district had not yet adopted the permit policy, it was refusing to purchase ‘red cane’ it had itself recommended the farmers to grow.

He said 95 per cent farmers of Thul had grown ‘red cane’.

Khwaja Muhammad Shoaib of the Farmers Vision Forum said Multan’s cane growers were facing problems in selling their crop because there was no mill in the district.

Muzaffargarh acting district nazim Malik Allahdad Khar said he had not received any complaint regarding sale of cane or blackmailing by sugar mills.