ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Monday ordered sugar mills owners of south Punjab to sit with sugar cane growers and come up with a workable solution to end the prevailing crisis and unrest among farmers due to the unwillingness of the mills to purchase sugar cane at the official price of Rs180 per maund.

The fresh directive by a three-judge Supreme Court bench, headed by Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, came on a plea filed by the Pakistan Kissan Ittehad highlighting that the Feb 11 commitment by the sugar mills before the apex court to lift sugar cane at the government price was not being honoured.

Five sugar mills operating in south Punjab had earlier given an undertaking to the apex court for purchase of the crops at the official price.

To sort out the matter, a meeting will be held at the office of Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan, the counsel for JDW Sugar Mills owned by former Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf secretary general Jahangir Khan Tareen. Cane Commissioner Sanaullah, Rahimyar Khan District Commissioner Suqrat Aman Rana and growers will attend the meeting. The four other sugar mills are Hamza Sugar Mills, Rahimyar Khan Sugar Mills, Indus Sugar Mills and Ashraf Sugar Mills.

Court declines request for reopening of three sugar mills

The issues to be sorted out include weighing procedure for sugar cane trolleys, mode of payment, crops to be lifted from 54 designated points, and the decision on purchase of crops from growers within the catchment areas of the mills. The farmers also demand that the mills compensate in case the trolley carrying crops have to wait in queue for long.

As per direction, a mutually agreed plan will have to be presented before the Supreme Court by Wednesday. The court then may appoint a committee comprising district and sessions judges of Rahimyar Khan, Bahawalpur and Muzzafargarh to oversee the implementation of the proposed plan.

However, the Supreme Court on Monday declined a request for reopening of three sugar mills — Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills Ltd, Chaudhry Sugar Mills Ltd and Ittefaq Sugar Mills — whose operation has been suspended since September last year on the Lahore High Court order for dismantling and relocation of their plants from the area of Bahawalpur within three months.

Earlier when Mr Tareen, the owner of JDW Sugar Mills, appeared at the rostrum in the courtroom to present his point of view, a number of growers attending the proceedings started raising a hue and cry.

But the Supreme Court regretted that it would not be deterred by such kind of behaviour and would decide the matter in accordance with the law. The bench made it clear that it would not allow farmers to suffer no matter if the sugar mills had to become bankrupt or be sold. “The commitment the mills have given earlier has to be implemented at all cost,” the chief justice said.

Mr Tareen blamed the Punjab government for not implementing its own decision of purchasing the crop at Rs180 per 40kg. As a result, some mills were buying the crop at the rate of Rs120 to Rs130, while his sugar mills had given an undertaking to buy sugar cane at the official price, he argued. He explained that their cost of production was far less and they sold sugar in the market at a far less price then what the JDW Sugar Mills could offer.

He said since the JDW Sugar Mills offered the official rate of Rs180, the pressure on his mills increased immensely. Even the growers who did not fall within the catchment area, also approached his mills, he said, adding that it was very difficult for his sugar mills to lift the entire yield of all the districts.

He further explained that the JDW Sugar Mills instead of having a traditional weighing system employed its own system by issuing a permit to each grower one by one in a systematic manner to avoid rush.

The chief justice observed that the cane commissioner and the district commissioner should try to become servants of the state and not of any provincial government. He cautioned them that the court would take adverse decision in case it was found that their decision was not proper or clouded due to the ‘dictates of someone’.

“Both of you are not leaving the court with a good impression,” the chief justice regretted.

However, Rahimyar Khan District Commissioner Suqrat Aman Rana assured the court that he would never bow down on his integrity and would not let the court down.

Sugar cane commissioner Sanaullah startled the court when he informed it that last year’s turnover on the sale of sugar cane was Rs2 trillion.

Earlier, the Kissan Ittehad through their petition had argued that the crushing season that had already started would last only four months and missing the entire crushing season would mean irreparable loss to the sugar mills, their employees and the growers.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2018