Daily Times

While the Tobacco Growers Alliance Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been protesting in Swabi for the last five days, they have requested that their tobacco crop be procured on schedule and at the current market pricing.

Tobacco Growers Alliance of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Tobacco Growers have been protesting in different areas of Swabi for the last five days and also blocked (Peshawar-Islamabad)Motorway against the policies of Multinational tobacco Companies who used to reject tobacco crop purchase from these farmers and tobacco Growers on different excuses.

The Tobacco Growers Alliance leadership of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa said that tobacco multinational companies used to reject their tobacco crop and sometimes purchase at low prices in violation of their quota. These multinational companies also refused to purchase tobacco crops in surplus and used to humiliate the tobacco farmers and growers while purchasing the crop at the due rate.

As part of their protests, the Tobacco Growers Alliance demanded Prime Minister Imran Khan, Speaker of the National Assembly Asas Khan, and Parliamentarians of Swabi, Mardan, Charsada, Buneir and Manehra state that tobacco is the cash crop of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa but Tobacco Multinational Companies want to deprive tobacco Growers of their crop. They said that global tobacco businesses used to complicate things for local tobacco farmers by rejecting tobacco crops for a variety of illogical reasons, causing them to suffer significant losses.

Learning from past experiences, the tobacco farmers and growers cultivated the tobacco crop in large quantity but now, multinational tobacco companies are not purchasing tobacco at the present rate and used to humiliate and reject their Tobacco product.

The tobacco Growers said that these multinational companies utilizing organized delaying tactics to purchase their respective tobacco crops to pressurised the government and to maintain their monopoly on Tobacco production.

The tobacco Growers said that in an organizer way, their lands are being made infertile. They said that tobacco Growers used to deposit billions of rupees in the national exchequer.

The tobacco Growers said that through these tactics, the tobacco Growers are being incited against the government for the low rates of tobacco.

The growers said that rates of everything are growing but tobacco rates are being low with an organized conspiracy.

The tobacco Growers said that multinational companies used to buy tobacco from other countries and wants to destroy the agriculture sector in Pakistan.
These multinational companies have also made hundreds of people jobless in Pakistan and all three people were hired by local and national tobacco companies and owing to local tobacco companies hinders and thousands of people are being provided with job opportunities and subsistence.

The tobacco Growers also demanded of Prime Minister and Parliamentarians of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to allocate taxes for national and international tobacco companies as per product rate and in this scenario, the government will get due taxes.

They also suggested that taxes on the cost of production of Tobacco should be enhanced, through which the cost and prices of cigarettes packets will also be increased.

Tobacco Growers Alliance Khyber Pakhtunkhwa includes Dadar Kisan Board Rizwanullah, General Secretary SARDO Hussein Ahmed, Pakistan Tobacco Workers Association Liaqat Yusufzai.