THATTA, May 19: Growers of the district have condemned the loan recovery campaign of the Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited (ZTBL) and demanded that it should be stopped forthwith.

They said the government had declared the district as calamity-hit area.

In separate press releases issued here on Monday, the growers, belonging to the Small Growers Association, Sindh Hari Tanzim and other growers’ associations, said the farming community was not able to return the loans they had taken from the bank as their produce had been badly affected by the non-release of water downstream Kotri.

They said Thatta was declared a drought-hit district due to cyclones and non-release of water downstream Kotri for the last four years.

They deplored that intrusion of seawater had rendered 1.2 million acres of fertile lands of Thatta and Badin districts barren and procurement of sugarcane crop was also reduced to 50 per cent this year.

The ZTBL has launched a campaign to recover a loan of Rs600 million from 8,000 farmers of the district.

The regional manager of the ZTBL, Thatta, Masood Jamal, has directed mobile credit officers of Thatta, Mirpur Bathoro, Sujawal, Mirpur Sakro, Var, Chuhar Jamali and Jati towns’ branches of the bank to recover the loan in one month.

It was learnt that the bank had also issued arrest warrants and notices against defaulters under section, 81 and 82 of the PPC.

The defaulters included a leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-F, Salma Ahmad, owner of a hotel in Karachi, Latif Khan, leader of the People’s Party Parliamentarians, Pir Zaman Shah Jilani, leader of the PML-Q, Chaudhry Zafarullah, former MPAs Razzaq Soomro and Syed Shafiq Ahmad Shah and the son of former federal minister Syed Sher Ali Shah, Shahid Hussain Shah.