SC to hear case today on non-payment to sugarcane farmers
Published April 26, 2018
ISLAMABAD: The case over non-payment of sugarcane prices to farmers will be heard in the Supreme Court today, where owners of all sugar mills have been summoned.
The orders were issued after a three-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar, heard a suo motu case on April 24 regarding non-payment of sugarcane price to farmers.
Earlier, while hearing a case on a similar issue, the chief justice remarked that the rights of sugarcane farmers would be safeguarded.
During the hearing on February 19, farmers told the court that the sugar cane mills owner were not buying sugarcane at the rate of Rs180 per maund, which is why the production was going to waste.
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.
While confirming reason of the protest, PTI leader Haleem Adil Sheikh said farmers had come from different cities of Sindh to protest the non-payment of adequate rate to them.
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 kilogrammes and getting signature from the farmers for the rate of Rs180 for the same quantity, he added.
