HYDERABAD: Sindh Chamber of Agriculture has rejected unilateral incre­ases in urea prices and accu­sed manufacturers of passing on the burden of 10 per cent super tax to growers.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, vice-president Nabi Bux Sathio said the agriculture inputs have alre­ady become costlier manifold during the last few months and the urea manufacturers increased the per bag rate to Rs2,350 from Rs1,950 without any justification.

He said the level of loot and plunder of fertiliser companies could be gauged from the fact that the federal government imposed a 10pc super tax on total annual income while these companies increased the 20pc rate on each bag of urea.

Surprisingly, he said, the provincial and federal governments were hand in glove with urea manufacturing compa­nies for exploiting growers.

Rejecting the anti-farmer decision of urea manufacturers, he urged the federal government to take serious notice of the illegal hike and get the urea price reverted to Rs1,950 per bag.

Published in Dawn, July 14th, 2022