LAHORE: Lauding the decision of the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) to impose a fine of Rs44 billion on sugar mills for cartelising to jack up prices of the sweetener, farmers demand that the recovered amount should be used to subsidise farm inputs.

Speaking at a press conference here on Sunday, Pakistan Kisan Ittehad president Khalid Khokhar said the growers were happy at the CCP decision which, he said, was taken as “the first pro-masses verdict” by any authority. He claimed that by raising Re1 per kg around three dozen sugar millers would collect Rs5.5 billion from the consumers and during the last couple of years the industrialists minted hundreds of billions of rupees by raising the sugar prices from Rs57 to over Rs110 per kg.

He demanded that the Rs44 billion fine should be utilised to subsidise farm inputs like fertiliser, seed and pesticides to cut down cost of production of local crops and reduce wheat, sugar, rice, etc. prices for the local consumers.

Mr Khokhar was also all praise for the amended Punjab Sugar Factories Control Ordinance which was later enacted as a law which helped sugarcane growers get around Rs80 billion more than previous years and that too in time, for the law set a time frame for the payments through formal banking channels and forbade cut in the weight of the sugarcane by the mills on one pretext or another.

Kisan Foundation chief Mehmood al-Bukhari said Rs3.5 billion of cane growers was pending with the millers for the last crushing season. He demanded that the government

not only arrange payment of this amount but also Rs32 billion overdue as interest against the mills for failing to pay their dues in time since 1983.

He also demanded that the government announce the start of crushing season from Oct 25 this year so that around 2.148 millions of acres of land under sugarcane in Punjab may be cleared for the sowing of wheat in time for making the country self-sufficient in grain.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2021