LAYYAH, Jan 1: The sugar cane growers in the district staged a sit-in on Wednesday to protest, what they alleged, short-measuring by the sugar mills' management.

They said the Layyah Sugar Mills had been measuring the Indian variety of sugar cane half of the original weight. "If they supply hundred maunds of sugar cane, they get slip of only 50 maunds." The mills' management has been accused of committing daylight robbery by measuring less sugar cane also at its purchase centres.

District Nazim Sardar Shahabdin Sehar, along with a numbers of other notables, visited the mills and raised this issue with the management, but its GM Mian Fazal Ahmad claimed all this activity was being done according to an agreement between the management and the growers.

Saying that running a sugar mills in the prevailing conditions was not easy, he warned of closing down the mills if the farmers disrupted the current practice.

Later, the issue was debated in the afternoon session of the district council meeting during which the house passed a resolution against this illegal practice.

The members demanded the government that it should take stern action against the mills, otherwise the growers would be left with no option other than launching a protest drive.

However, District Coordination Officer Pervez Khusroo Malik assured the house that the matter would be resolved through negotiations for which a six-member committee of the house was being constituted. Meanwhile, the senior officials of the mills have assured the growers that they will not short-measure the product and clear their outstanding dues within 15 days.