HYDERABAD, Feb 11: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) has criticised the agricultural loan policy of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and complained that the policy discriminates against the growers of Sindh.

A meeting of the chamber chaired by Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah on Sunday pointed out that all the scheduled banks were bound to extend loans to 14 per cent growers of Sindh under the policy. But only 10 per cent loans actually landed in the growers’ hands due to stringent conditions, the meeting said.

On the contrary the banks in Punjab were bound to advance loans to 78 per cent growers but they extended loans to 84 per cent growers due to their soft policy, the meeting said.

The discrimination had created resentment among Sindhi growers, the meeting said and demanded that the conditions for loans to Sindhi growers should be similar to those of Punjab. The banks should not ask the growers who possessed pass books for any other guarantee, the meeting said.

The chamber’s president informed the meeting that the chamber’s agriculture credit advisory committee was scheduled to meet with the governor of State Bank on February 13 on the issue. Senior member of the Board of Revenue Sindh, secretary planning and development and secretary finance had been especially invited to attend the meeting, he said.

The meeting expressed concern that the attack of a bug virus on mango orchards spread over 500 acres in Tando Allahyar had done great harm to the fruit and urged the authority concerned to take immediate steps to check the menace.

Akhund Ghulam Mohammad Siddiqui, Mir Murad Ali Talpur, Dr. Shahnawaz Shah, Anwar Bachani, Aijaz Nabi Shah and Mir Imdad Ali attended the meeting.