Federal Minister for Industries, Production and Special Initiatives Jahangir Khan Tareen on Thursday said that there should be a link between prices of sugarcane and sugar, adding that support price of sugarcane in Sindh was acceptable.
He said this while talking to newsmen after a meeting of National Programme for Improving of Watercourses (NPIW) to review the progress of the project at the office of Programme Monitoring Unit Karachi.
He informed that after a meeting of his ministry with sugar mills owners, retail price of sugar had been fixed at Rs 34 per kilogram, so that sugarcane growers could get the reasonable price of their crop.
To a query he said that sugar mills would start crushing within two or three days. He said that Prime Minister had also formed a four-member committee for monitoring the sugar issues.
Jahangir Tareen said that government had allowed to sale ethanol-mixed petrol in the country and it was also available at some petrol pumps of PSO. He said that other companies were also allowed for selling this type of patrol.
He showed satisfaction over the progress of project. He informed that through the project of NPIW more than 15,000 watercourses with a cost of Rs 8 billion all over the country while more than 5000 in Sindh with Rs 3.3 billion were cement-lined during last financial year.
He informed that NPIW was a five years programme through which 86,000 watercourses would be cement-lined in the country. He informed that NPIW was a federal government funded project and an amount of Rs 52 billion was allocated for this project.
Earlier, Project Director Programme Monitoring Unit Sindh, Muhammad Younus Dagha briefed the federal minister about the programme, which was being implemented throughout the province with financial support of government.
He informed that there were about 33,000 unimproved watercourses in Sindh, which would be taken under this project in four years with a cost of Rs 25 billion.
He informed that 5071 watercourses were completed in last year against the target of 4700 while the target for current year was 5000 watercourses. He informed that the allocation of Rs 764.33 million had been received to Sindh government for current year.
The minister was informed that under the programme district governments had received 14,970 applications from growers so far for improvement of their watercourses. He was informed that 5966 Watercourses Association (WCAs) had been formed and registered by the by the Community Development Departments of district governments.
It was informed that technical sanction of about 3576 watercourses had been issued while cement lining had already been initiated on 1207 watercourses. Project Director also briefed the minister that GIS (Geographical Information System) was successfully implemented in this programme.
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