Siraj for improving lot of growers

LAHORE

JI ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has expressed sorrow that no government in the country so far has given due importance to agriculture which has multiplied the problems of growers and their plight. 

Talking to a delegation of Kissan Board Pakistan which met him at Mansoora on Monday, he said Pakistan could not be put on the path to progress and prosperity without improving the lot of the 70 per cent population directly depending on agriculture for its own sustenance. Sirajul Haq said the government had neither ensured the payments to sugarcane growers’ arrears by sugar mills nor raised the sugarcane procurement price to Rs 250 per maund as required. The government had promised cash support of Rs 5,000 per acre to the paddy and cotton growers owning up to twelve and a half acres of land but instead the money was distributed among big landowners and vaderas sitting in the corridors of power. 

Sirajul Haq demanded fixation of procurement price of Basmati paddy at Rs 2500 per maund and cotton at Rs 4,000 per bale. He said at present, Basmati paddy was being sold at Rs 1700 per maund due to which the grower was incurring losses. He said the government expressing sympathies with the growers was practically trying to deceive them once again. “The government was promoting corruption in every sphere and despite assurance against it, while sales tax on fertilizer and pesticides had not been abolished. Due to this, prices of both had gone up. Besides, the fertilizer was not available to the growers for wheat sowing,” he said. 

Sirajul Haq said growers living in rural areas did not have approach to bank. Traditionally, they were not inclined to getting bank loans. As a result, only the agriculturists having linked with the government alone would benefit from the facility of government loans. He called for interest free loans to small farmers. He said State Bank had chalked out various schemes in this regard but there seemed to be lack of will on the part of the government. 

Meanwhile, Sirajul Haq chaired a meeting of the Legal Committee of JI at Mansoora. Addressing the meeting, he thanked the people of Sindh, especially Karachi, for making the JI convention a great success. 

Indian aggression: JI secretary-general Liaqat Baloch has warned that Indian jingoism and aggressive attitude towards neighbours would ultimately destroy India herself. 

Kashmiris on both sides of the Line of Control would give a befitting reply to Indian repression whereas people of Pakistan and its armed forces were ready to pay back to Delhi for all her excesses in the past, he said while addressing a meeting on Monday.

He urged the armed forces, political and economic forces besides intellectuals to be on one page against the enemy and added that a strong and independent Pakistan alone could guarantee peace and stability in the region. Liaqat Baloch said JI was committed to freeing the masses from oppression and corruption and ensuring the rule of law and the constitution. He said those plunging the country into humiliation of poverty and ignominy by taking unwanted foreign loans and then siphoning them away to their own accounts were more dangerous for the nation than the foreign enemies.

He said the rulers were giving preference to cosmetic projects for the sake of flattering the masses for voting for them, but ignoring the basic development of infrastructure and social evils and economic problems of the masses. The masses demanded a change in the police culture and the security of their lives, property and honour. But those vitally important goals had always evaded the rulers who had been more interested in building their own properties, businesses and empires abroad and in the country, he said. 

crime: Jamaat Islami naib ameer Dr Farid Ahmed Piracha expressed deep concern over the rise in street crimes, target killings and dacoities in Lahore and questioned the performance of the much trumpeted Dolphin Force enjoying huge perks and facilities, besides raising the salaries and privileges of other sections of police force. 

In a statement on Monday, Dr Piracha said it seemed that Lahorites had been left at the mercy of the murderers and dacoits, while the police force had handed over Lahore to become the target of criminals after Karachi.

Farid Piracha said it was the government’s responsibility to find out the elements behind the current wave of crime in the city.

He stressed the government to chalk out a crash programme to control crime and strictly implement it indiscriminately to protect life and property to the masses.