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HYDERABAD, July 1: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA) on Sunday urged the government to declare the entire province as calamity-hit and exempt growers, who had suffered huge losses in heavy rains, from the payment of agricultural loans and water tax.
The SCA Senior Vice-President Mir Murad Ali Khan Talpur said at a meeting of the chamber that the government should, also pay growers compensation for the losses after undertaking a survey.
The persistent rains had completely destroyed crops of tomato, onion, chillies and rice in Badin, Thatta, Tando Mohammad Khan and Mirpurkhas districts.
The meeting said that the growers had suffered millions of rupees of losses and demanded that the people who possessed less than 16 acres should be exempted from the payment of land revenue and water charges. Moreover, the government should advance loans to the livestock owners and dairy farmers on easy terms on the pattern of Punjab, the meeting suggested.
Mir Imdad Ali Talpur, Mohammad Khan Sarejo, Misri Khan Mallah, Nawaz Ali Samejo, Abdul Hussain Khwaja and Dr. Nazar Haider Shah among others attended the meeting.
WARNING: District Coordination Officer Aftab Ahmed Khatri on Sunday warned the people residing in dilapidated buildings to evacuate their houses, which posed a serious danger to their lives during the heavy rains.
He said while presiding over a meeting on the implementation of rain emergency plan at his office that the district government had issued notices to the owners of 87 dilapidated buildings asking them to adopt precautionary measures, like demolition or repair of dangerous buildings, but their response had been on the while discouraging.
Mr. Khatri directed the Building Control Department of Hyderabad Development Authority (HDA) to pay visits to the dangerous buildings along with public representatives to convince the owners into evacuation and also identify other dangerous buildings.
He urged the EDO of education to keep school buildings adjacent to dangerous buildings ready for setting up relief camps and asked the EDO of health to declare emergency in all the district hospitals and form mobile teams to provide prompt medical treatment to the injured.
