UPPER DIR: The traders dealing in mushroom say that they face heavy losses owing to imposition of taxes on them by forest department and decrease in prices of mushroom in the market.

They said that they had been suffering heavy losses for the last three years. “We had bought mushroom at Rs2,500 to Rs3,000 per kilogram from local farmers but presently it is being sold at Rs1,200 to Rs1,300 per kilogram in Swat, Peshawar and others cities,” said a local trader.

Upper Dir is known as hum of mushroom business in the country as thousands of kilograms of mushrooms are being supplied from the district to the markets within the country as well as abroad.

Badshahudin, president of mushroom dealers in Upper Dir, said that traders were suffering losses as forest department imposed tax on the business. The imposition of tax on mushroom business was unjust and a cruel decision, he added.

Regret imposition of tax by forest dept, decrease in prices

Badshahudin said that mushroom was not a wild product rather it was grown in the fields along the water channels and in plain areas. “Even in Europe, mushroom is considered a vegetable,” he added.

The trader leader said that there was no justification to levy tax on mushroom. The illegal tax on the product for the last three years had ruined the production as well as business, he added.

Badshahudin said that local businessmen were uncertain as they were hesitating to buy mushrooms from the farmers. He said that they were already paying two types of taxes on mushroom. He said that they paid the tax at airport at the time of exporting mushroom and then they received amount of their product after its sale in the international market.

He said that government was generating billions of dollars revenue from mushrooms business in the markets of Switzerland, France and others countries. He said other countries like India, Afghanistan and Nepal would replace Pakistan in the international market if attention was not paid to the problems of traders.

Badshahudin said that those countries had exempted their mushroom dealers from taxes as they were striving to occupy the international market.

Khaiur Rehman, a mushroom dealer, said that he had lost millions of rupees in mushroom business last year due to decrease in its prices. He said that he had bought mushroom at Rs,3000 per kilogram but sold it at Rs1,500 per kilogram in Swat, Peshawar and other cities.

He said that he bought just a few kilograms of mushroom in the current year to avoid huge losses like that of previous year.

Another dealer said that businessmen were avoiding buying huge quantity of mushrooms owing to uncertainty in the market.

He said that he had purchased only 50 kilograms of mushroom that year instead of thousands of kilograms like he sued to buy in the past.

Some dealers said that they had invested billions of rupees in the business hoping that government would reverse its decision of levying tax on mushrooms.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2016