SWABI: The tobacco companies have completed buying their announced quota for the current year, sources in the companies said on Thursday.

Talking to this correspondent, they said that a bulk of tobacco, especially flue-cured Virginia (FCV), was purchased by the Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC) and Philips Morris International (PMI), Pakistan, every year.

The FCV demand of all multinational and national companies for the current year was 35.98 million kilogrammes and the total demand of all the varieties of tobacco was 37.25 million kilogrammes.

The quota of 44 companies was announced before start of the tobacco cultivation, said the sources.

In the FCV quota, PTC’s demand was 27.5 million kg while three million kg was the requirement of PMI.

The sources said that the remaining quota was purchased by 42 national companies and small cigarette manufacturers.

They said that the companies announced their quota every year through the Pakistan Tobacco Board and according to rules the buyers were bound to procure that quota directly from the growers.

When contacted a leaf manager of PTC said that they had completed purchasing of the announced quota and they could not buy more FCV in the tobacco buying season. Similar views were expressed by the PMI officials.

Representatives of the national companies said that they had purchased more than their announced quota.

LG POLLS PLAN SOUGHT: Awami National Party leaders said here on Thursday that no one would be allowed to hijack the local government system and demanded of the government to immediately announce schedule for the election.

ANP Razaar tehsil president Mohammad Ashfaq and other local leaders told mediapersons that in the absence of local government system the PTI leadership had devised a plan to devour the local funds and deprive the people of development work.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2019