OKARA, March 15: As many as 50 families involved in making the agriculture equipment and tools in their workshops have suffered a lot following an abrupt increase in the prices of iron.

Besides, the owners of different categories of steel business and shopkeepers are facing financial difficulties, as people are waiting for reduction in the prices of the material.

Rana Ashiq Husain, a workshop owner, told this correspondent that they could not even make value-added products, including doors, windows and fences, these days because of instability of the market price of iron. Consequently, the skilled labourers had started going from door to door to do some repair work until there was some fresh business, he added.

He said the workshop prepared at least 20 different kinds of tools, including rear and front level blades, cultivators, seed drills, ridger plougher (simple) and ridger with fertilizer system.

There are three groups engaged in the iron business in the district. The first one sells steel in different forms, the second prepares value-added materials of iron like doors, windows and grills, and the third category is of the makers of the agriculture equipment. The Okara district is reckoned as a leading agriculture equipment maker in the province.

MURDERED: Two persons were murdered in separate incidents here on Monday. Lal Din and his son, Attaullah, were asleep in their farm house in Mupal Key when some unidentified men shot Atta dead. A 12-year-old boy was kidnapped and killed by some unidentified people.