JI for announcement of support price of wheat, sugar cane

Lahore: Ameer, Jamaat e Islami, Pakistan, Syed Munawar Hasan, has stressed  upon the government to immediately announce the support price of wheat and sugarcane in order to remove unrest among the growers.

In a statement here on Wednesday, he however said that the support prices should be fixed keeping in views the interest of both the growers and the consuming public.

The JI Ameer said, the government had not announced the support price of wheat so far due to which the growers were disturbed and the wheat cultivation could be affected. Similarly, he said, the support price for sugarcane was too low to meet its cost of production. The cost of production had increased due to increase in the prices of agricultural inputs including fertilizer, seed and pesticides during the year.

Syed Munawar Hasan said that at the time of the annual budget, the prices of different consumer goods were determined and along with that the salaries of the government, semi government employees were increased proportionately. However, he said, that the interest of almost seventy per cent of the country’s population living in the rural areas and dependent on agriculture, was ignored in this process.

He said that the policies of the rulers so far had worsened the plight of the people and there was no improvement anywhere. India’s water aggression had reduced the availability of water for irrigation purposes considerably, while on the other hand, tube well irrigation had gone out of the grower’s reach due to load shedding and steep rise in diesel prices. The situation called for immediate relief for the growers through subsidy on the prices of agricultural inputs as well as fixation of support price for wheat and sugar cane.

He said if the growers did not feel any incentive in wheat cultivation, the area under the crop would be low and as a result, the government would have to import wheat on high rates.