Punjab govt cracks down on five sugar mills
ISLAMABAD: In a major crackdown to overcome the sugar crisis, the Punjab government has arrested the owners and senior management of five sugar mills for not making payments to the growers and unlawfully increasing the commodity price.
The government cracked down on five defaulter sugar mills - including two units of Tandliawala Sugar Mills, Chanar Sugar Mills, Pasrur Sugar Mills and Shakar Ganj Sugar Mills - and arrested the owners and senior management, officials said.
The main allegations are default on payment of over Rs1 billion dues to the farmers and selling sugar at higher than the government fixed rates.
Out of the total payable amount of over Rs1bn, payments of Rs620 million were due on account of farmers’ outstanding dues, while a couple of other mills are involved in mis-declaration/fraudulent practices leading to about Rs400 million payables.
An official of the Punjab Food Department said despite several reminders, the managements of Chanar Sugar Mills and Pasrur Sugar Mills were reluctant to share the evidence of payment to growers and claimed that all amounts had been paid to the growers.
However, as per record available with many farmers, they were yet to be disbursed in return for their produce by these mills.
Hence, the department took action over incorrect/fraudulent practices against the sugar mills.
He said that Javed Kiani, the owner of Chanar Sugar Mill, and three admin and finance executives of Shakar Ganj Sugar Mill, Jhang had been arrested over non-payment of dues.
A case against owner Ali Saleem had also been registered but his arrest could not be effected.
Action has also been taken against the manager admin of Tandliawala besides registration of a case against Haroon Akhtar, who is associated with the ruling Pakistan Tehreek-e-insaf (PTI).
A case against Pasroor Sugar Mills has been registered by the Sialkot district administration. The owner, Ahmad Latif, has absconded. The official said the outstanding dues of farmers should have been paid in a fortnight as per law, but the managements of various sugar mills were willfully involved in default.
He said the government had issued several notices for recovery of farmer dues during the last one year, but to no avail.
As a last resort, the provincial government, on the directions of the federal government, decided to take legal steps against the defaulting sugar mills a few weeks before the launch of the crushing season.