August 21, 2008	Thursday	Sha'aban 18, 1429

HYDERABAD, Aug 20: Sindh Abadgar Board President Abdul Majeed Nizamani has warned the government that undue increase in prices of agricultural inputs like fertiliser, oil, seeds, transport and labour charges will have a devastating effect on the country’s economy next year.

In a statement faxed to Dawn here on Wednesday, he deplored a statement made by adviser to the federal government for industry and production Manzoor Watto citing hoarding and black-marketing as the main reason for shortage of fertiliser.

This indicates the helplessness of the government to check hoarding and black-marketing, Mr Nizamani said.

He reminded the government that last year there was no shortage of fertiliser but only due to the increase in the price of phosphatic fertiliser, the country had suffered a loss of Rs170 billion in the production of cotton, rice and wheat and the import bill of food items had reached 3.5 billion dollars.

He said that he failed to understand why the government was not taking any action against the hoarders and black marketeers and cartels who were destroying the country’s economy.

Nizamani argued that the demand for fertiliser was 5.4 million tons whereas 4.8 million tons were available in the country and 0.3 million tons had already been imported while the remaining were already in the pipeline. Why is there record shortage of urea despite its availability, the Board president questioned.

He pointed out that cotton, rice and other Kharif crops were at flowering stage but urea was neither available in the market nor in the warehouses. The factories were also running day and night yet urea was not available, Nizamani said.

He said that it was inspite of the fact that the government had abolished GST on fertiliser and a subsidy of Rs12 billion on gas had been given to the factories.

He said keeping in view the cost of production, the price of urea should have been fixed at Rs515 per bag but it has been fixed at Rs625 as a result of which the companies and the dealers will earn profits to the tune of tens of millions of rupees. He reminded PPP of its slogans of Roti, Kapra aur Makan and said that it had failed to provide any relief whatsoever to the poor people so far.

He warned the government that if urea and DAP was not made available to the growers at the fixed rates, the government will have to spend 2731.75 million dollars on the import of wheat and cotton and added that the country will suffer colossal losses in other crops also such as rice.

Nizamani advised the government to reduce the non-development budget by 35 per cent and save the national economy from further crisis.

Lecture: Seven eminent professors from the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT) Thailand including its dean of Faculty of Engineering Prof Worsak Kanok-Nukulchai delivered lectures at a seminar on “Recent Advancement of Future Trends in Engineering and Technology” on Wednesday.

The seminar was organised by the Directorate of Continuing Education of the Mehran University of Engineering and Technology.

MUET Vice-Chancellor Prof Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan Rajput presided over the seminar.