September 01, 2008	Monday	Sha'aban 29, 1429

HYDERABAD, Aug 31: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture on Sunday urged the Sindh government to stop transportation of more than the sanctioned quota of urea fertiliser to Punjab and its sale in black-market.

The chamber members said at a meeting here that sugarcane, banana, rice and cotton crops were drying up due to an acute shortage of water and urea fertiliser but the government appeared to have surrendered to black-marketeers and profiteers.

They said that more than the sanctioned quota of urea fertiliser was being sent to Punjab from Mirpur Mathelo factory and the urea produced by Faisalabad factory was being sold through dealers in the blackmarket in Sindh.

They urged the government to take affective measures to ensure no extra urea fertiliser was sent to Punjab. The federal and Sindh governments had though taken notice of outstanding dues of growers amounting to billion of rupees but the mills had not yet paid up.

They called upon the federal and provincial governments to direct the mills to clear dues and reiterated demands that the mills should be made operational on Oct 1 under the Sugar Control Act.

The chamber members called upon the livestock department to provide information about livestock breeding to farming community.

SAB: The Sindh Abadgar Board vice-president Gada Hussain Mahessar on Sunday disputed the estimates put forward by the ministry of food, agriculture and livestock, which put rice production this year at 6 million tons and termed such premature predictions very dangerous for the national economy.

He said in a press statement that the ministry wizards should take into account the fact that the price of fertiliser this year had jumped from 30 per cent to 220 per cent, forcing growers to use only 60 per cent of urea in their fields.

For example, the price of phosphate fertiliser had increased by Rs2,200 per bag and the growers had to make do without this important agricultural input, he said.

Last year, relying on such wrong estimates the government had exported 400,000 tons of wheat, a step which soon afterwards led to the worst wheat crisis in the country’s history, he said.

Mr Mahessar suggested proper planning for development of agricultural and industrial sectors, constitution of cotton, rice, wheat and sugarcane boards at federal level, allocation of Rs700 billion as agricultural loans and establishment of two more urea fertiliser factories.