MUZAFFARGARH: A large number of farmers locked the gates of the Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mills on Friday and protested against the mills administration for blocking their Rs115 million payments for the last 20 months or so.

While no government official visited the scene, disappointed farmers cried in vain and appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan and Chief Minister Usman Buzdar to help them get their payments.

The mills was closed down on the orders of the Supreme Court because of its illegal shifting to Muzaffargarh from Nankana Sahib during the previous government of Shahbaz Sharif. Since its closure 20 months ago, the mills administration fled the site without making payments to the farmers.

Rana Liaqat and Chaudhry Ghafoor said they had been waiting for the release of their Rs20 million dues. Now, they had been left with no option but to hold a sit-in on the mills premises. They said that neither mills administration nor district officials contacted them in the last 20 months.

Another farmer Mustafa Shah said his dream to perform Haj could not be realised because of the non-payment of his dues in the last two years, and now when rupee was depreciated and Haj charges were hiked, what would be the use of getting their hard earned money now? He demanded that the government ensure extra payments to them.

The Haseeb Waqas Sugar Mill illegally shifted its unit from Nankana Sahib to Muzaffargarh in 2015. When an unusual heavy construction was going on at around 82 acres in mauza Jagmal, Tehsil Jatoi of Muzaffargarh the local people did not know about sugar mill because the construction site had the hoarding that read ‘Punjab Jagmal Fisheries’. At that time the district government was forced to look the other way as the mill belonged to the relatives of the then ruling Sharif family. In its first crushing season in 2015, the Punjab Cane Commissioner declared it a defaulter on payments to Nankana Sahib farmers. In 2016, during the peak of crushing season, the Supreme Court of Pakistan closed down the mills without resolving the issue of farmers’ dues.

Last year, then deputy commissioner Saif Anwar Jappa asked the police to register a case against mills owners for defaulting on payments. In 2016, the cane commissioner once again declared the mills a defaulter, but the labour district officer and other departments were not allowed raid the mills.

When the mill was being set up in area, farmers were not so much excited or bothered about the new construction because three sugar mills were already functioning in Muzffargarh. These mills were alarmed by the prospects of a fourth sugar mill in the district, and that too owned by a powerful ruling elite.

Of the three sugar mills – Sheikhu Sugar Mills, Tandlianwala Sugar Mills and Fatima Sugar Mills – two mills moved the Lahore High Court, Multan bench, and took stay on the construction of the mills. Their lawyers said government imposed ban on the construction of the new sugar mill. Lawyers of the Fatima Sugar mills and Tandlianwala sugar mills said the Haseeb Waqas group had no no-objection certificate (NOC) and also objected to issue of power supply to the mills that had no NOC.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2019