The business community engaged with agri-tool and auto-part industries of Daska has urged upon the Punjab government to take initiatives for tracking both industries on modern production lines. Daska is a famous hub and had a special repute in producing the agricultural inputs with traditional techniques and without any support of the government catering the needs of farmers and cultivators.
The city was also producing diesel engines used for irrigation purposes and milling wheat to produce flour and now entered into production of washing machines, electric fans and auto parts. An auto-part manufacturer Haji Nazir Ahmad Mughal said that Daska is producing quality auto-parts of various vehicles and fulfilling the demand easily. He demanded that Punjab government should take some revolutionary steps and announce concessions for further accelerating the pace of the industry.
More than 90 small and big agri-tools manufacturing units are functioning successfully in and close to Daska, out of this, 58 units are producing complete machinery while remaining units were producing components of the machinery. Daska made agricultural tools are being exported to Korea, Sudan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and some other countries.
The industry is manufacturing fully automotive tools and catering the needs and requirements of farmers of the Punjab. The machinery likes wheat reaper, wheat thrashers, multipurpose reaper machines and land laser levellers besides fodder cutters and wheat sowing machines are being manufactured in the area.
It may be mentioned that Daska is pioneer in manufactured the wheat straw chopper and rice stubble chopper machines in the very beginning and with the passage of time the industry is now producing modern machinery to facilitate grower community of the Punjab.
A prominent agri-inputs producer and South Asian award winner Muhammad Iqbal Mughal told that manufacturers engaged with the industry have started producing hi-tech agriculture machinery on their own resources. Iqbal Mughal was of the opinion that Punjab government should take steps for imparting training to the small growers about utilisation of agricultural machinery for enhancing per acre yield of the crops as well as the utilisation of hi-tech machinery would help reduce sowing problems of the farmers.
Omar Farooq Mughal and some other agri-tools manufacturers while expressing their views said that high tariff of electricity and heavy taxes are hindering the development of the industry whereas in neighbouring countries the governments are extending special concessions to facilitating the industrial sectors of their countries.
The Punjab government should provide the facility of loans on lower mark up to agricultural tools manufacturers enabling them to modernise their workplaces, they demanded. The manufacturers are also confronting with serious problems due to the non-availability of raw material and non-availability of laboratory facilities, as a result of which the manufacturers are facing hardships.
The small growers are unable to purchase agricultural machinery because the utilisation of imported parts in agricultural machinery is causing high cost of the tools. They called upon the government to establish a "raw material bank" and a testing laboratory in Daska enabling the manufacturers to obtain analysis of iron and other components at local level. They stressed the need of training institute for producing skilled and trained industrial force for catering the needs of the industrial sector of the area.