SWABI, Oct 29: The district council has demanded that the funds collected by cessing tobacco be spent on development schemes of the area like sugercane cess had been allocated for the uplift of farmers of other areas .

Council members suggested that tobacco cess be paid to the excise department, and passed a resolution, which said that through different taxes on tobacco, Swabi farmers had contributed over Rs19 billion to exchequer of federal and provincial governments, but the cess money had diverted to some other areas of the NWFP.

The diversion of the funds had created a sense of deprivation among the farmers, they said and added that sugercan cess had been spent on the development projects of those areas from where it had been collected, but the irony was that the Rs120 million tobacco cess had not been spent in the district.

They demanded that tobacco purchasing companies pay cess to the excise department of the  district government.