SWABI, July 14: Farmers have urged the government to compensate them for their tobacco crops which they said had been badly damaged in a thunderstorm on Friday. A meeting of the tobacco growers and leaders of Ghulam Kashthkar (GK), a body of farmers, was held here on Saturday at the office of a local NGO, the Community Development Organisation (CDO).

The growers said that the thunderstorm accompanied by heavy rain and hailstones lashed various parts of the district, damaging their tobacco crop. The most affected areas were Razar, Yar Hussian and Tehsil Swabi. Tobacco crop is mainly grown in Tehsil Chota Lahor and Tehsil Swabi.

GK president Prof Manawar Khan said the federal government had been collecting Rs34 billion as sales tax and other taxes on tobacco each year, while the NWFP government received Rs2 per kilogramme as tax every year.

“Now it is time for the federal and provincial governments to provide financial assistance to the tobacco growers,” he said.

He questioned the government’s utilisation of the tobacco cess funds and claimed that according to rules it should be only spent in tobacco growing areas. He said that the provincial government should utilise the funds to improve the financial condition of growers.

CDO president Rehman Sher regretted that the multinational and national tobacco companies had always ignored the growers and passed the benefits of the trade only to the influential and buyers of the crop.

The Pakistan Tobacco Board had also not played its role in protecting their interests, he complained.

The buyers of the crop and companies involved in the tobacco business were responsible for the plight of the growers who were being exploited, he added.