SUKKUR, May 5: Speakers at a seminar held on Monday on cotton production urged growers to adopt modern technology, use quality seeds and adopt better water management techniques to maximise the yield.

The seminar was attended by cotton commissioner, Pakistan, Qadir Baloch, while the managing-director of the Fauji Fertiliser, Lt-Gen (Retd) Mehmood Ahmed, was the chief guest on the occasion.

In his key-note speech, Lt-Gen Mehmood urged growers to achieve self-sufficiency and abandon the culture of being wholly dependent of the government for solving their petty problems.

Citing example of achieving self-sufficiency through self- help basis, he said that Pakistan had achieved self sufficiency in urea through self reliance.

Pakistan, he said, was producing 4.2 million tonnes of urea locally, which he said was sufficient to meet the country’s needs.

Referring to the maintenance of the FFC’s Plant III, he said that it would be complete within the next 15 days, after which it would go into production.

Earlier, Qadir Bakhsh Baloch, cotton commissioner, Pakistan, said there was sufficient water for cotton crop in Sindh, and said that the discharge at Guddu had been 55,000 cusecs on May 4 against a discharge of 33,000 cusecs on the same day last year.

The discharge, he said, at the Sukkur Barrage was 44,500 cusecs on the same day against 22,000 cusecs in the same period last year.

MINISTER’S VISIT: Federal Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunications Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari will undertake a two-day-long tour of Sukkur and Ghotki districts beginning from May 7.