HYDERABAD, Feb 7: A farmers’ leader has said that Badin and Thatta districts have been declared calamity-hit on 16 occasions during the past 22 years but the government has failed to provide relief to the local growers.

Successive governments did not provide agricultural package to the growers of the two districts which were disaster-prone coastal areas and they had always suffered the most due to cyclones, floods and rains, he said.

The president of Sindh Chamber of Agriculture, Badin chapter, Mohammad Khan Sarejo, said in a statement that National Assembly speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza, who belonged to Badin district, had recently announced in a public meeting in Tando Bago that the growers’ loans up to Rs200,000 would be waived but nothing practically had been done in this regard.

He appealed to the MNAs and the MPAs of Badin district to use their influence and ensure that the agricultural loans up to Rs500,000 were waived and mark-up of loan above this amount was done away with.

He said the Sindh government had written a letter to the State Bank requesting for waiver of Rs4 billion loans outstanding against the rice mills.