BAHAWALPUR, April 2: The Kisan Board office-bearers and Jamaat-i-Islami activists on Wednesday held a joint demonstration in front of the local press club and voiced their concern over policies of the previous government which, according to them, had been detrimental to the economic uplift of the country.

Saying that they will give some time to the new government to cure the ill-planned policies, they also threatened to launch massive demonstrations if the needful was not done.

Addressing the protesters, Kissan Board central general-secretary Jam Hazoor Bakhsh criticised the policies of the previous government, especially in agriculture sector, which, he said, had incurred huge losses to the farming community.

Referring to inflated prices of agricultural inputs and shortage of irrigation water, he particularly flayed the withdrawal of fuel subsidy on bulldozers and excavators rented out by agriculture department workshops to farmers to flatten uncultivated lands and instead enhancing their rents.

Jam said that the board would give time to the new government to redress their grievances. However, he added, if the new government failed to solve their problems, the farmers would not hesitate to come on the streets.

He also criticised the sugar mills owners, who, he said, were deducting about 20 to 25 maunds of sugarcane from every trolley during weighing exercise when cultivators bring the commodity for sale. Besides, he added, the millers were withholding payments of farmers to the tune of hundreds of thousands of rupees for several months.

Jam said that the banks were charging over 16 per cent interest on loans from agriculturists. These rates of interest should be reduced to only two per cent like other countries, he said. He also demanded that rates of electricity for tubewells also be reduced.

JI Punjab chapter naib amir and former MPA Dr. Syed Waseem Akhtar, JI city amir Khalid Iqbal and others spoke on the occasion.

Earlier, the protesters took out the rally from JI office near Masjid Al-Haq the demonstrators marched on S.E. College Road to reach the press club. They carried placards inscribed with the slogans highlighting their demands.

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