Sugar mills in NWFP further delayed the crushing season, which was due to start on December 4 or 5, sources told Business Recorder on Tuesday. Premier Sugar Mills (PSM), Mardan, has announced to start the crushing from Tuesday. When contacted, PSM Cane Manager Masood Akhtar told this scribe that the mill had started issuing indents for the supply of sugarcane to the growers.
He said that formal purchase of the crop at the mill would start from Wednesday. "After the supply of sufficient sugarcane, we would ultimately start crushing," he said. Masood Akhtar said with the conclusion of Eid-ul-Azha celebrations, the growers would start supply of the commodity to the mill. "The supply of sugarcane to the mills has been started and the formal launching of the crushing season would take four-to-five days," said an official of the Khazana Sugar Mills (KSM) Mir Alam Khan.
Khazana Sugar Mills, he said, started receiving sugarcane on Tuesday, and added on very first day, the mills received two sugarcane-loaded tractor trolleys. He said the season would start after resumption of full-scale supply of the crop to the mill. He was confident that crushing would start by December 4 or 5. This scribe also contacted Chishma-I Sugar Mills in D.I. Khan where an official disclosed that they were set to start crushing from Wednesday.
He said that they starting issuing indents, and expressed the hope that the full-swing supply of sugarcane would take three to four days and the crushing would start in five to six days. The official, who was talking on condition of anonymity, said that all four sugar mills in D.I. Khan district would have no problem of the availability of crop, as the growers of the district had sown sugarcane on 0.4 million acres in the area.
According to an understanding with the provincial government, the sugar mills had agreed to start crushing season in the two sugar mills of Peshawar valley by November 15 and those in D.I. Khan by November 20. But, despite the demands of the growers, the mills failed to initiate the crushing season on the agreed schedule.
The delay in the starting of crushing season has badly affected the sowing of wheat, another cash crop in the province. "The growers were demanding the start of crushing by November 15 to vacant their agricultural lands for the sowing of wheat. But, the sugar mafia allegedly deprived them of the cultivation period, said Murad Ali Khan of the NWFP Kisan Board.