MULTAN: The Pakistan Kisan Ittehad (PKI) announced on Tuesday that it would hold a rally on The Mall in Lahore on Nov 17 to protest against the government for not fulfilling their demands.

The announcement was made at a press conference by PKI President Khalid Mehmood Khokhar.

He said farmers were not getting the due rates of cotton and rice crops while sugar mills had withheld their payments for one year.

He said though they had been demanding for a long time to fix support prices of crops as was being done in India but the agriculture sector was not on the priority of the government.

“The government had announced that it would buy Phutti on a Rs3,000 support price per 40 kilo this time but the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) delayed buying the crop which forced farmers to sell their crop on low prices,” he said.

He demanded the government stop buying Phutti as it would benefit the ginners and TCP officials who were demanding a Rs200,000 graft from ginners per lot.

“Sugar mills are also not ready to make payments to sugarcane growers and it seems the mill owners are exploiting the farmers with the backing of the government,” he said.

He demanded the immediate imposition of agriculture emergency in the country, closure of Pakistan-India agriculture trade besides no transit trade route for India-Afghanistan trade. He also demanded the TCP stop the purchase of Phutti and the amount allocated for this be utilised as subsidy on fertilizer and that the Rs14 billion subsidy allocated for fertilizer be spent on farmers.

His other demands included withdrawing of General Sales Tax on agricultural inputs, a compensation for fish farmers who faced losses in recent floods and a Rs250 per 40 kg support price for sugarcane, Rs1,500 for wheat and Rs2,500 for rice.

He said a 30 per cent duty should be imposed on potato import and the notification of electricity’s agricultural tariff should be issued.

He said the farmers would protest on The Mall on Nov 17 if the government failed to fulfill their demands by Nov 14.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2014