LAHORE, July 8: After failure to effectively enforce a call for strike, the Pakistan Crop Protection Association (PCPA) on Tuesday withdrew the call barely two days after announcing it.

At a press conference, PCPA President Mushtaq Ahmad Chaudhry, however, claimed that the association was withdrawing the call “on the request of farmers and official readiness to accommodate pesticides importers’ complaints”.

Flanked by other office-bearers, Chaudhry said the government was harassing importers, manufacturers and dealers of pesticides on petty issues and forcing them going on strike. “Otherwise, strike call is businessman’s last option,” he said and added: “The Punjab government has agreed to concede some demands like not to challan dealers where law does not permit and take a member of the association along when raiding a factory.”

He insisted that spurious pesticides only form 0.25 per cent of the entire market, but the Punjab government, suffering from administrative paranoia, is on a rampage. The inspectors’ promotion is linked to the raids and FIRs, and they were booking everyone for even those offences that call for no more than petty fines.

He said the withdrawal of strike call would be reviewed after 10 days, and the association would decide whether it should again call for a strike or should end the threat. In the next 10 days, the association would also hold meeting with the chief minister and present him its complaints.

Jumshaid Iqbal Cheema, one of the office-bearers, claimed that the government’s claims about seizing Rs130 million fake or substandard pesticides. “Such a huge quantity of substandard pesticides simply does not exist in the market,” he said. The official claim was not true, he said and accused the government of politicising the campaign against substandard and fake pesticides.

A few office-bearers, however, conceded that strike call was a failure because some of the importers and manufacturers were still supplying pesticides and the association had to opt for withdrawal as a face saving measure. The association simply lacked the consensus behind the call and it had no option but to withdraw it.