MUZAFFARGARH, Jan 12: Mobile gurr units have emerged in Muzaffargarh working round-the-clock, producing tonnes of gurr. Farmers say these units offer them instant cash and save them from sugar millers who have been exploiting them for the last many years.
According to a Dawn survey, gurr mills are working in all the union councils of Muzaffargarh. Many farmers in Gulwala, Budh, Basira, Gujrat, Mahmood Kot, Wan Pitafi, Ghazi Ghaat and Karamdad Qureshi union councils offer their yield to gurr units. Up to 4,000 to 5,000kg of gurr is produced from one acre of sugarcane.
These gurr units roam from farm to farm and produce gurr. The plant that extracts juice from cane is operated by a motor and 16 people work in a unit. Eight people work in a shift of 12 hours. Of those eight, four people cut and supply sugarcane from the field to the plant and the remaining four extract juice from cane, heat it up in large canisters and prepare slashes of gurr. The unit owner takes the fourth part of gurr for labour and the remaining three shares go to the farmer.
Merchants in the Muzaffargarh grain market confirm that this year the supply of gurr has increased manyfold. They said last year they had bought gurr for Rs1,600 to Rs2,000 per 40 kg but this year the price had gone down.
The bulk supply of gurr has caused its price to slide in the market from Rs1,600 per 40kg in 2005 to Rs1,200 to Rs1,400 in 2006.
Many farmers who have opted for gurr units instead of supplying their produce to sugar mills said that it was the only way left for them to save themselves from being plundered and humiliated by sugar millers.
Nasir Almani, Rana Amjad and advocate Iqbal Pitafi, union council nazims of Ghazi Ghaat, Mahmood Kot and Wan Pitafi, said sugar mills had delayed payments and in some cases those who had supplied cane to mills in 2004 had yet to get their dues. They said many farmers in their areas had sought their help to get back their longstanding dues from the mills.
District Nazim Sardar Qayyum Jatoi has said sugar mills had offered bribe in return for a ban on cane transportation to other districts. He said that he had turned down the offer in the interest of farmers. Now the growers were free sell their cane to sugar mills in other districts as well.
He said in the past his predecessor had banned the movement of cane out of the district and this had given the millers a free hand to plunder the farmers. Malik Tassaduq Hussain, a progressive farmer, accused sugar mills of delaying their payments and said they were also involved in short measurement of their cane.
According to him, many sugar mills in Punjab pay transportation charges to cane farmers but a sugar mills in Muzaffargarh paid travelling expenses only to big landlords ignoring small farmers. He said that he had managed to get transportation charges after Malik Abdul Rehman Khar, a former provincial minister, intervened in the issue.
A landlord said that he had cultivated 10 acres of sugarcane this year but did not supply it to sugar mills.
Seeing unwillingness of growers to supply cane, sugar mills have reportedly hired contractors who contact farmers and persuade them to supply cane to sugar mills. Interestingly, these contractors make on-the-spot payments if any farmer sells his product at Rs50 for 40kg instead of market rate Rs62 per 40kg.
Muhammad Bukhsh, an official of the Fatima Sugar Mills, said that this year the factory was facing a shortage of cane and the mill had not been fully operational as yet. He said the mill had no information about the contactors buying cane at lesser price.