MULTAN, July 7: Employees of pesticide companies held a demonstration against the Punjab Agriculture Department for giving ‘absolute powers’ to its quality control and pest warning inspection teams.

Holding banners and placards, the protesters blocked Multan-Muzaffargarh Road and chanted slogans against the department.

The Pakistan Crop Protection Association (a group of pesticide companies) had announced its strike from Saturday demanding constitution of a code of conduct for quality control inspectors.

However, association executive member Amir Malik said that his group would end the strike because the matter had been settled with the agriculture department.

Saleem Nasir, an executive committee member of the Crop Life Pakistan (another group of pesticide companies), said they were not taking part in the strike because they believed in dialogues and strike was the last option.

Sources said some other pesticide companies assured the government that they would not take part in the strike.

Khwaja Muhammad Shoaib of Farmers’ Vision Forum said the strike call was tantamount to harassing farmers because 80 per cent pesticide was used for the cotton crop between July 15 and Sept 15.

He said that pesticide companies should have settled their dispute with the government before the start of the sowing season.

Pest Warning and Quality Control director-general Dr Ijaz Pervez said although the issue had been resolved and pesticide companies had assured the government to end the strike, it was clear that the government would not compromise on quality.

He said that companies were calling upon the government not to lodge the FIR against the company’s chief executive if the sample turned out to be substandard.

The main reason behind the strike was that the companies had given an import plan of 1.6 ton pesticide, but they had imported only 0.4 ton, he said.

Mr Pervez said that pesticide companies announced the strike when the government started checking their record because most of companies had smuggled the pesticide instead of importing it.