MIRPURKHAS: About 25,000 fertiliser bags, which were to be sold on the black market, were seized in a raid on a goods train at Mirpurkhas railway station on Monday.

Sources said that the local fertiliser dealers were moving the massive consignment in order to sell it to landlords and farmers at high rates.

The sources said that Mirp­urkhas taluka assistant commissioner Ghulam Hussain Kanio, along with his staff and police, carried out the raid on the directives of Deputy Commissioner Noor Mustufa Leghari.

During the search, they found Sona Urea bags loaded on different bogies and stopped over 50 labourers sent by local dealers to load the fertiliser on trucks for transporting it to their private godowns.

The sources said that fertiliser dealers of the district had been involved in selling the bags in black to big landlords instead of providing it to all abadgars and landlords at controlled rate.

For 10 days, they had been refusing the fertiliser to provide the fertiliser to abadgars, creating its artificial shortage.

Enraged landlords and farmers contacted the deputy commissioner and apprised him about the dealers and big land owners nexus and injustice and excesses with small farmers after which the DC ordered the action.

After receiving secret information, the DC seized the stock of the fertiliser to provide the urea bags to local abadgars and landlords at the official rate.

Later on, the assistant commissioner called a meeting of the office-bearers of the fertiliser dealers association and Sindh Abadgar Board Mirp­urkhas chapter to discuss the situation.

He listened to the comments of the dealers and abadgars and decided that the recovered stock of fertiliser would be distributed among the abadgars and landlords at official rate.

In another action, mukhtiar­kar of Hussain Bux Marri taluka carried out action on Khipro road near Khipro Naka Chowk on Monday and caught two trucks loaded with urea fertiliser, which was on way to private godowns of dealers.

Sources said that after the directives of the Mirpurkhas DC, revenue officials were busy checking loaded trucks and other vehicles to help end the artificial shortage of the fertiliser in the district.

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2023