HYDERABAD, Sept 25: The president of the Sindh Agriculture Forum, Noor Ahmed Nizamani, has demanded that the Sindh government's orders to sugar mills to start the crushing from Oct 1 be implemented.

He was talking to Dawn after attending a meeting of growers and sugar mill owners in Karachi on Friday which was presided over by the Sindh minister for food and agriculture, Arif Mustafa Jatoi.

Mr Nizamani said the minister took a tough stand in support of growers and made it clear that the government had already issued orders that the crushing must start in October.

The SAF president said the farmers were hard pressed due to chronic shortage of water and the introduction of middle man system.

He recalled that the last year the mill owners not only did not implement the orders of the government to start crushing season in October but also got away with it.

He said the largest sugarcane producer in Sindh, Ali Mohammad Nizamani of Matli, who supplies half a million maunds of sugarcane to mills, was also present in the meeting and supported the growers' demand to start the crushing in October.

Mr Nizamani said the former federal minister, Khair Mohammad Junejo, demanded that the sugar mills must fix the price of sugarcane before the start of crushing.

He regretted that the chief spokesman of the mill owners, Shuned Qureshi, said that the crushing would be delayed for about two months due to some technical problems.

Mr Nizamani said representatives of mills not only appeared reluctant in implementing the government orders but they also refused to fix the sugarcane price before the start of the season.

PREMIUM: The Sindh government has directed all the sugar mills to pay the quality premium to cane growers at the rate of 50 paisas per 40 kgs.

A press release issued by the directorate of the Agriculture Information and Extension, Sindh, on Saturday said the government had issued a notification in this regard in exercise of powers conferred by the Sugar Factories Control Act 1950 about the payment of quality premium to growers for the 2004-05 crushing season.

TEST RESULTS: The deputy registrar, admissions, the Sindh Agriculture University, Tandojam on Saturday notified that the results of pre-entry test and interviews for admissions to B.Sc, B.A, DVM and IT had been displayed on the university notice board.

He said if any candidate wish to file an appeal he must contact the deputy registrar within three days.

The successful candidates have been advised to deposit their certificates within three days.