HYDERABAD, April 7: Sindh Agriculture Secretary Sabhago Khan Jatoi has directed assistant directors of the agriculture marketing wing to ensure implementation of an agreement reached with the marketing fee contractors.

He said this in a meeting of field officers of the agriculture extension and marketing wings on Tuesday. The secretary said under the agreement seizure posts, overcharging, double charging and fee collection outside notified areas were not allowed.

Mr Jatoi said marketing fee contracts were given in the larger public interest to increase income for improvement of the market committees and to check pilferage by the committee staff. The fee collection auction has yielded 25 per cent more income, he added.

He said no misuse of the contract would be tolerated and warned that contractors would be given notices and their licenses would be cancelled. The secretary directed the marketing staff to strictly monitor the fee collection by contractors.

Talking to a delegation of traders and millers, the secretary agriculture assured them that no illegal fee would be recovered and it would be recovered as per schedule of rates and no harassment in this respect would be tolerated.

In a separate meeting cotton action plan for the year 2004 was discussed in detail which aimed at achieving the target of 3 million bales as against the last year's achievement of 2.4 million bales.

The secretary said the main thrust of the action plan would be transmission of improved cotton production technology through electronic media so that cotton farmers of the far-flung areas also received the message. Ways and means to check the leakages in cotton, transportation fee collection and improvement of agriculture statistics were also discussed at the meeting.