F.P. Report
ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan will resume hearing of the case over non-payment of sugarcane prices to farmers on Thursday (today), where owners of all sugar mills have been summoned.
The summoned were issued Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar headed three-member bench of the Supreme Court and heard a suo motu case on April 24 regarding non-payment of sugarcane price to farmers.
During the last hearing, CJP remarked that the rights of sugarcane farmers would be safeguarded.
On February 19, the farmer informed the bench that the owners of sugar mills were not buying sugarcane at the rate of Rs 180 per maund and it destroying the production of farmers.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader and one of the mill owners, Jahangir Tareen, said that the issue was caused by the Punjab government. He said that his mill was buying the harvest at Rs180 per maund, suggesting other mill owners should also follow suit.
Since the issue is also faced by sugarcane farmers in Sindh, a protest over the similar issue was held in Karachi in January.
It was said that sugarcane farmers across the country have faced an accumulative loss of over Rs60 million in Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa after owners of mills refused to pay them the official price fixed for the current year.
Moreover, while speaking at a meeting, National Food Security and Research Minister Sikandar Hayat Bosan said that except for a sugar mill or two in southern Punjab, no other mill was paying farmers the price fixed by the provincial governments.
The mills are purchasing sugarcane from farmers at the rate of Rs120 to 130 for 40 kilograms and getting signature from the farmers for the rate of Rs180 for the same quantity, he added.
