LARKANA:The Larkana Chamber of Agriculture (LCA) has once again demanded an increase in agricultural products produced by the poor farmers after very hard labour.
In a statement issued here on Tuesday by LCA President, Syed Sirajul Oliya Rashdi, he said that petrol in the past 70 years reached to Rs80 per liter but in the last three years it has gone to Rs150 per liter. He said loans in the last 70 years were Rs25000 billion but in the last three years they have reached to Rs45000 billion. He said the dollar in the last 70 years was upto Rs105 but in the past three years it has gone to Rs170. He said that sugar in the last 70 years remained upto Rs55 but in the past three years it has touched Rs120 per kg.
Likewise, he added, Ghee per kg in the last 70 years reached upto Rs170 per kg but in the past three years it has touched to Rs400. He said flour rates reached in the past 70 years upto Rs 35 per kg but in the past three years it has gone to Rs70 per kg which indeed is beyond the reach of a common daily wager.
Rashdi further said that DAP bag reached in the past 70 years to Rs3500 but in the last three years its rates have gone upto Rs9500. He said the medicine which reached to Rs110 in the past 70 years has gone sky-rocketing in the last three years and is being sold in the retail market at Rs330 which means poverty-stricken poor people should either take medicines or a meal because both cannot be procured by them at a time.
He asked where the labourer and the peasant should go? He said the worst affected is the tiller after the mini-budget as subsidy on tube wells has been withdrawn, prices of diesel have been increased, urea and other fertilizers have vanished from the market, agricultural machinery prices have also gone up but the rates of the agriculture produce of the growers are still unchanged. He demanded an increase of the agricultural products’ prices as compared to the market rates of other items.