August 18, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 15, 1429

HYDERABAD, Aug 17: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture said on Sunday that the water rotation programme being followed despite swelling Indus River, had led to complete destruction of standing sugarcane crop on thousands of acres of land in Khairpur Gambho at the tail-end of Naseer Canal.

A meeting of the chamber chaired by Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah demanded supply of water to tail-end growers and regretted that the sugar mill owners had withheld tens of millions of rupees they owed to growers.

The meeting expressed concern over unavailability of urea fertiliser in open market and said that the dealers were selling the agricultural inputs in black-market.

A bag of urea fertiliser was being sold at Rs830 in black market against the official rate of Rs630 per bag, the meeting noted and demanded that the government should take notice of the situation.

GSTA: The Hyderabad chapter of the Government Secondary Teachers Association has threatened to launch a movement in protest against delay in the promotion of secondary school teachers and said that the body would observe a black week from Aug 19 to 26.

A meeting of the association’s general body held on Saturday under Zamir Khan said that all the formalities had been completed but the district nazim had still not held the meeting of DPC to grant promotions to deserving teachers.

The meeting pointed out that the teachers had been waiting for their rightful promotions for the past three years and the GSTA had issued an ultimatum up to Aug 15 asking the nazim to hold DPC meeting but the demand fell on deaf ears.

The association had been left with no other option but to launch a movement for the genuine and legal rights of teachers, the meeting said.

The meeting was highly critical of the attitude of officials at the district accounts office Hyderabad and said that they were not being issued GP fund slips and were being harassed.

The meeting decided that a delegation of the association would meet the district accounts officer and apprise him of the teachers’ problems and the officials’ behaviour.