ISLAMABAD, Dec 4: The government has decided not to offer this year any support price for sugarcane and instead fixed an unannounced “indicative” price of Rs 43 per 40 kg of the crop.

Official sources said here on Tuesday that a letter, jointly signed by Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz and Commerce Minister Abdul Razak Dawood, had been sent to the Cane Commissioner, Punjab, to set the indicative price of Rs 43 per 40 kg for sugarcane.

The letter was now being sent to the Sindh and NWFP governments, . the sources added. However, no notification was issued by the cabinet division over the issue which, according to the sources, was against the spirit of an earlier decision taken by President Gen Pervez Musharraf that farmers be offered support price for their sugarcane, as in the previous year.

“ The new decision has to be documented”, an official said, conceding that no notification had been issued so far over the matter.

The president had approved support price for four major crops - wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane, which was now reportedly being resisted by some high officials, including the commerce minister, specially for sugarcane.

The sources said sugar mill owners were being favoured by not agreeing to offer support price to the farmers despite clear instructions of the president.

It was said that the commerce minister might have got some verbal approval of the president through his (president’s) Principal Adviser, Tariq Aziz, for having an indicative price, about which no notification had been issued.

The commerce minister was believed to have also asked the governor of Sindh not to look for any implementation of support price and that, instead, an indicative price regime should be encouraged.

The sources said the commerce minister and some officials of the ministry of food and agriculture were saying that the support price, if offered to the farmers, would cause a huge loss to mill owners.

“Who is lobbying for whom is not known, “ said a concerned official.

He said that, had the owners suffered losses, the number of sugar mills would not have gone up from 36 to 76 during the last few years.

The sources said it cost the farmers Rs 41 per 40 kg of sugarcane and if they were forced to sell their sugarcane at Rs 43 per 40 Kg, they would not get any thing, which would simply discourage them from growing sugarcane.