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December 31, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 02,1430

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MUZAFFARGARH, Dec 30: Farmers blocked Multan-Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh-Mianwali roads and attacked a trailer carrying fertiliser during twin demonstrations against agriculture department officials who were reluctant to sell 3,000 bags of urea throughout on Tuesday.

Owing to ‘bureaucratic’ bottlenecks, these bags were sold at around 6pm only after a Utility Stores Corporation (USC) official came from Multan to monitor the sale as per government directives.

The executive district officer (EDO) for agriculture said that urea could not be sold because no USC official was available throughout the day.

Early in the morning, hundreds of farmers gathered in front of a urea shop being run by Babar Pathan to get the most sought-after commodity.

The agriculture department official asked them to produce title deeds (fard milkiat) of their farming lands on which all aspirants rushed to local courts complex to obtain the document from respective halqa patwaries.

When they returned to the shop along with the requisite document, agriculture department officials refused to sell urea bags, saying that they were unable to start the sale because no USC official was present there.

EDO Ch Shehzad Ahmed said that according to government directives, it was necessary that one USC official and officials of revenue department should be present at the outlet where urea bags were sold to farmers. He said that a USC official, Kashif, was to come from Multan but he could not, so they were unable to start the sale.

Hearing this, the farmers launched a demonstration, blocked the Multan-Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh-Mianwali roads and threw traffic out of gear for quite some time.

The police persuaded the farmers to lift the blockade while promising them that the sale of fertilizer would start the moment USC official would arrive.

The USC official, however, did not turn up by 4pm on which farmers blocked the both main highways again. They also attacked a trailer carrying urea bags, compelling the police to resort to baton-charge to disperse the demonstrators.

However, the USC official did show up late in the evening and the sale of fertilizer started at around 6pm. Each farmer was sold up to three bags per head only. The EDO said that there were 3,000 bags with the department which would be sold accordingly.

The miseries of farmers who had come from far-flung areas did not come to an end as they would have to spend their night out in Muzaffargarh because vehicular traffic came to a virtual halt owing to descending fog in latter part of the evening.

TOBA TEK SINGH: Farmers staged a demonstration in Kamalia over non-availability of fertilizers.

Led by Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf, a Union Council-57 councillor, the protesters blocked Kamalia-Mamokanjun Road for over an hour and raised slogans against the administration for its failure to ensure sale of fertilizers on control rate.

The protesters said that they were in dire need of fertilizers for wheat crop but a negligible quantity was available and that too in black market. The demonstrators later reached tehsil courts complex in Kamalia and met officials concerned who assured them that fertilizers would be made available to them within a couple of days.

Meanwhile, agriculture department task force headed by District Officer Khalid Mahmood raided a shop in Chak 189-GB near Rajana and caught fertilizers dealer Riaz while selling urea at Rs880 per bag instead of control rate of Rs662 per bag. The Rajana police later registered a case against Riaz and arrested him.