SUKKUR, Dec 1: Despite repeated assurances, Passco has miserably failed to establish its centres in the five districts of Larkana region and Sukkur and Ghotki districts.

Information collected in this regard from Larkana, Sukkur and Ghotki revealed that due to sugarcane crisis during last three years, most of the growers had switched over to paddy cultivation and resultantly more than 11 lac acres of land was brought under paddy cultivation and interestingly despite a ban on paddy cultivation in Ghotki district, paddy has been cultivated throughout the district over one lac acres.

According to the figures, six million tons of paddy has been produced in Larkana region alone, which include, Larkana, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Shikarpur, Jacobabad and Kashmore districts. Agriculture sources claimed that more than four million tons of rice would be produced from six million tons of paddy, while the Passco has agreed to purchase five lac tons of rice only.

Sources said that Passco had announced to establish 70 paddy procurement centres throughout Larkana region, out of which 20 were to be established in Larkana district, 20 in Qamber-Shahdadkot and 10 each in Shikarpur, Kashmore and Jacobabad districts, but so far only five to six centres were reportedly established, but sources claim that paddy was being purchased from influential growers only, while the poor were being ignored badly.

Reports collected from Shikarpur, Kashmore, Kandhkot, Tangwani, Thull and other areas said that only one procurement centre has been established in Thull, while no centre has been established in Kashmore and Jacobabad, due to which the poor growers were compelled to sell their yield to the rice millers and traders at the rate of Rs. 400 to Rs. 600 per maund.

Talking to this scribe from Kashmore, information secretary Sindh Abadgar Board G.M. Khoso alleged that Passco and rice mill owners were hand in glove and were forcing the poor growers to sell paddy to them at Rs. 400 per maund, which is quite unjustified. He said that in Kashmore district, paddy was cultivated over 52,000 acres and after harvesting lacs of maunds, paddy was lying under the open skies.

Mr. Khoso said that mostly Irri-6 paddy is cultivated in Larkana region and added that one million ton to 1.2 million tons of Irri-6 rice is needed to fulfil country’s requirement, while 4 to 5 lac tons was needed for poultry feed and 5 to 6 lac tons was required in Sindh alone for rice flour.

He further said that last year paddy was sold for Rs. 1000 per maund, therefore, this year more abadgars switched over to paddy cultivation, but now they were facing problems, as neither Passco nor rice mill owners were ready to purchase it.

While the rice mill owners were of the view that prices of paddy were on a constant decline in international market and added that they were buying paddy for Rs. 700 per maund, but Passco was not ready to buy rice from them even for Rs. 1200 per maund, therefore they were not ready to purchase paddy from the growers.

On the other hand abadgars were blaming rice mill owners for engineering paddy crisis for their own good.

In this connection, when this correspondent contacted the EDO agriculture Ghotki Riaz Dayo, he said though there was ban on paddy cultivation throughout Ghotki district, but despite that, paddy was cultivated over more than one lac acres of land due to which a decrease of 25 per cent in cotton crop is being witnessed.

He told that cotton crop target for the year 2008-2009 for district Ghotki was 105,000 hectares, but due to more rice cultivation in the area, it has been sown on 73,500 hectares, registering a decrease of 25 per cent.

He said that last year wheat cultivation target in the district was 84,600 hectares but it was sown over 90,000 hectares and was hopeful that this year wheat would be sown over 100,000 hectares.