HYDERABAD, June 8: The Sindh Chamber of Agriculture at a meeting held here on Sunday asked growers not to pay land revenue and other taxes for the Rabi crops unless their dues were cleared by sugar mills.

The general secretary of the chamber, Akhund Ghulam Mohammad Siddiqui, presided over the meeting.

The meeting expressed grave concern over the inordinate delay in payment of growers’ dues by sugar mills and asked the government to postpone the recovery of different agricultural taxes by six months as it had miserably failed to persuade the sugar mills to clear the outstanding dues of farmers according to the notified rates.

The meeting lashed out at the government for closing its eyes towards the problems of growers and said that the indifferent and non-serious attitude of the government to resolve the problems of farmers was simply incomprehensible.

This attitude has created a lot of disappointment and resentment among the farming community, the meeting pointed out.

It said that the Asian Development Bank had allocated a huge amount of Rs25 million for 22 schemes for the development of agriculture sector and rural areas but the entire amount seemed to have been swallowed up by the agriculture department.

Not a single penny out of Rs25 million had been spent on the development of agriculture sector and rural areas, the meeting alleged and demanded that an inquiry should be held as to where this money had gone.Those who attended the meeting included Mir Murad Ali Talpur, Anwar Bachani, Qazi Abdul Majeed, Mohammad Khan Sarejo, Nawab Ghulam Qadir Laghari and others. jobs: The imams, muezzins and teachers of Auqaf department, whose services had recently been terminated by the Sindh government, have appealed to the Sindh chief minister to reinstate them in their posts and regularise their appointments.

Addressing a news conference at the press club here on Sunday, Allama Farooq Ahmed Soomro, Mufti Sahibdad Sikandari and others said that they were appointed 14 years ago after completing legal formalities, including written test and interviews on contract bases.

They said that the salary of an imam was fixed at Rs2,500 per month while of muezzin and madressah teacher at Rs2,000 per month.

They said that they were assured that as soon as the ban on employment was lifted, their services will be regularised.

They said that although the appointments continued during the banned period but they were totally ignored.

They said they had hoped that after serving for 14 years, their services would be regularised but unfortunately as soon as the ‘peoples’ government’ came to power their services were terminated.

They said that it was an irony that in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, imams, muezzins and madressah teachers were being paid low salaries.

They appealed to the Sindh chief minister to reinstate them and regularise their services.

Answering a question they said that the services of 153 auqaf department employees falling in the above categories had been terminated.