MIRPURKHAS, Jan 7: Drop in supply of sugarcane has led to a fierce competition among the five sugar mills of the district, forcing them to woo growers back with offers of lucrative prices and other incentives.

Almost all the mills, which were reluctant to lift cane at the government-fixed Rs81 per maund just a few weeks ago, are now offering up to Rs90 per maund to growers directly and indirectly to get more cane.

Sources in the sugar mills said that the competition would continue till the mills achieved their target.

The officers of the sugar mills have held meetings with field staff and centre in-charges and directed them to discreetly contact growers and offers them higher prices for sugarcane.

Sugarcane growers Mohammad Moosa Maher, Imtiaz Panhwar, Rais Ahmed Khan, Javed Babar and Abdul Ghafoor Maher said that the mills should offer Rs150 per maund so that they could receive reasonable price of their produce because they had suffered huge losses and wanted to recover them.

They hoped for a further increase in the cane price till the end of crushing season.

Reports said that crushing at Najma Sugar Mills had dropped due to some faults in the machinery while Digri Sugar Mills was reportedly facing no-cane situation. The growers were avoiding it to because the mills had failed to clear their arrears amounting to Rs220 million.

The remaining three, Mirpurkhas, Al-Abbas and Tharparkar sugar mills were crushing cane to full capacity.

PANIC: An unconcerned woman caused panic by dropping a garbage-filled polythene bag from her home in Kehri Imambargah in Bhansinghabad where a Majlis being held on Wednesday.