SWABI: Leaders of tobacco growers on Tuesday demanded of both the federal and provincial governments to provide financial assistance to farmers whose crop was damaged in the recent hailstorm in the district.

Speaking at a meeting held here, they said hailstones had damaged the crop at very critical stage. They said once damaged at this stage the crop could not recover, inflicting heavy financial losses on growers.

The growers’ leaders said they had handed over a charter of demands to the deputy commissioner on Monday, and also met the additional deputy commissioner, demanding of them to launch a crop damage-assessment survey.

On the occasion, Liaqat Yousafzai, central chairman of Tobacco Growers Association Pakistan, said the federal and provincial governments collected millions of taxes on tobacco crop, but didn’t help the farmers when they were in hot waters.

Iqbal Khan Shewa, vice-chairman of Ittehad Kashtkaran, said the Pakistan Tobacco Board and multinational companies should play their role in protecting growers from adverse affects of climate change.

Faridullah Khan, central vice-president of Farmers’ Coordination Council, said growers were still reeling from the last year’s floods.

POWER SUPPLY: The participants of a multiparty conference held here the other day unanimously demanded provision of uninterrupted electricity supply to the residents of Swabi as they had given their lands for construction of Tarbela and Ghazi Barotha projects.

The conference was convened by Deh Haq Awaz, a local welfare body.

Representatives of local government, non-government organisations, jirga members and social workers also attended the moot.

The leaders regretted that people were subjected to prolonged outages despite the fact that they had sacrificed thousands of acres of lands for construction of the two mega projects.

Published in Dawn, May 31st, 2023