Daily Times

Khyber Pakhtunkhw (KP) Chief Minister (CM) Mahmood Khan has warned the sugar mill owners to immediately start crushing of sugarcane otherwise the government would use the law against those who violate orders.

Addressing a high level meeting at the Chief Minister House Peshawar, he said that the delay in crushing affects the sugarcane growers and brings losses to them and the government would never compromise on the interests of the cultivators.

“The failure of the mills owners would leave the government with no other option but to use the law and appoint administrators to start the crushing without any lapse of time,” he warned.

Provincial Minister for Information, Shaukat Yousafzai, Minister Food Qalandar Lodhi, Chief Secretary Naveed Kamran Baloch, Principal Secretary to CM Muhammad Israr, Secretary Finance, Shakeel Qadir, Secretary Food Akbar Khan, Commissioner Sugarcane Sadat Hasan and others attended the high level gathering.

The meeting thoroughly discussed the reservations of the sugarcane growers and their problems arising out of the delay in crushing of sugarcane by the mills owners. The members of the meeting were briefed about the legal process needed to be employed to deal with the situation arising out of this delay. The attendants were further informed about the possibility of law and order situation in D.I.Khan because of the non-starting of sugar crushing by the relevant sugar mills in D.I.Khan, which has effected about 6000 cultivator families so far.

Chief Minister directed all the stakeholders to immediately address this problem and resolve it on priority basis. He directed the Secretary Food, Commissioner Sugarcane, Commissioner D.I.Khan and DIG D.I.Khan to conduct meetings with the mills owners and inform them of the gravity of the situation. If the sugar mills owners stop their protest and start the crushing of sugarcane timely, it will be in the benefit of all but if they disagree and do not start the crushing, the next most suitable option will be to take these mills over and run them through the government’s own administrators.

The chief minister assured that his government would not allow anyone to harm the poor segment of society.

Published in Daily Times, December 12^th 2018.