HYDERABAD, Sept 18: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture has demanded that the government should introduce amendments in the Sugar Factories Control Act to include mill-owners in the sugarcane control board. The decision to raise the demand was taken at a meeting of the chamber held here on Sunday.

Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah presided over the meeting.

The meeting said the board should negotiate with the mill-owners rather than wasting time with general managers of the factories who could not take any decision on their own.

The managers could not fix sugarcane rates, nor announce date of crushing season, the meeting said.

Mr Shah urged the government to direct the mills to make payments to the growers within one week of the supply of sugarcane.

If the payments were not made on time then interest should be paid to farmers according to the rates of the agriculture bank of Pakistan.

He said the growers be provided with premium according to government rates and 25 per cent sugar cess be spent on research.

He called upon the Sindh government to direct factories to fire the boilers at least 15 days before start of the crushing season.

The mills should ignite the boilers on October 1, start the crushing season on October 15 and fix the minimum price of sugarcane at Rs65 per 40kg, he said.

The meeting made a complaint about inspectors who were appointed by the government to look after sugar related affairs that they were not sincere with farmers and were working for the mill-owners.

Five growers from each sugar mill area be deputed with the inspectors to weigh cane properly and to check quality of sugar, the meeting suggested.

Dr Shahnawaz Shah, Akhund Ghulam Mohammad, Mohammad Khan Sarejo, Murad Ali Talpur, Aijaz Nabi Shah and Saeen Bux Rind were present on the occasion.