MULTAN (January 28 2004): The Minister of State for Food and Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL), Sikandar Hayat Bosan disclosed that a new agriculture policy for 2004-05 is being introduced in next month.

Presiding over a meeting of the standing committee of Minfal on Cotton Crop Assessment at CCRI, Multan, he said that his ministry was carrying out the consultations with all the stake holders like growers, ginners, spinners, weavers, pesticides dealers, seed producers etc.

Sikandar Hayat Bosan said that Pakistan would produce ten million bales of cotton and production could increase from the target however it would not be less than 10 million bales

The committee discussed the reported under weight bales being pressed by the ginneries.

He advised the ginners to produce cotton bales with the standard weight of 170 kgs as already decided by the government.

He also emphasised upon the ginners to adopt the cotton standardisation and grading system to overcome the quality and contamination problems.

Seth Jetha-Nand, Chairman of PCGA while talking to newsmen said that total cotton crop would not be more than 9.5 million bales and weight of each bale would be 165.5 kgs as decided by the association.

Sales tax collectorate sources said that ginners show at least one million bales less than actual production to evade the sales tax of Rs 20 billion.

The Minister also asked the provincial agricultural department to streamline and activate the crop reporting services to get more accurate and reliable estimates besides keeping a constant watch on the availability and management of pesticides during the crop season in future.

The meeting was attended by Dr Qadar Bakhsh Baluch Cotton Commissioner, Vice President of Pakistan Central Cotton Committee Dr Ibad Badar Siddiqui, Chairman of Trading Corporation of Pakistan, Masud Alam Rizvi, Chairman of PCGA Seth Jetha Nand Kohistani, representatives of Aptma.

Courtesy Business Recorder