SWABI, Feb 19: Twenty million saplings would be planted across the country of which a tobacco company would contribute 4.5 million free of cost in the current plantation campaign.

This was stated by the provincial Minister for Food, Excise and Taxation, Fazal Rabani, while inaugurating the current plantation campaign here on Friday. Mr Rabani lauded the tobacco company's role in the plantation campaign each year, providing free of cost saplings to the people in the country, especially in the tobacco cultivating areas of the NWFP.

The company, he said, also provided education facilities by constructing schools and imparted computer training to the poor tobacco growers in Swabi and other districts.

Only in Swabi, he added, six primary schools had been opened in Yar Hussain region for the girls and all the expenditure of these institutions had been borne by the company.

The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal government, he said, was expecting that the company would purchase tobacco from the growers in the forthcoming purchasing season according to the tobacco marketing law - MLO 487.

The federal government, the minister said, had collected Rs22 to Rs30 billion through different taxes on tobacco crop but had ignored the unprecedented impact of recent rains on all the tobacco growing areas and districts.

Whenever the MMA government talked about power royalty it was considered a non-issue, he said. Similarly, the NFC award was also labelled as a non-issue and the federal government adopted shallow pretexts on the issue.

About Kalabagh dam, he said a committee of federal government had briefed the NWFP cabinet about the construction for convincing the MMA government. The committee members, the minister said, were reminded that the people displaced at the time of Tarbela Dam and Warsak Dam had not been compensated, and the same would be the story of the controversial Kalabagh dam.

About Ghazi Barotha hydro-project, he said the water of the project had been stored in Swabi district region but the powerhouse was constructed in Punjab.