Pakistan: Govt Accused of Neglecting Tobacco Growers

Source from:  dawn.com  09/01/2014

The government has been accused of its apathy towards uplift of the poor tobacco growers despite getting millions of rupees in tobacco cess, every year.

Talking to Dawn on Friday, Liaqat Yousufzai, general secretary of Kashtkar Coordination Council, said that last year, the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa received about Rs450 million and the Pakistan Tobacco Company Rs140 million, respectively, in tobacco cess, but the lot of the poor growers remained unchanged.

Mr Yousufzai said that in 2013, the federal government received about Rs70 billion through different taxes imposed directly and indirectly on tobacco crop. He added that the figure could jump further after tobacco purchasing season concluded this year.

Khalid Khan, district president of the Kisan Board, said that the entire burden of these taxes was passed onto the poor farmers, while the benefits were reaped by the powerful and influential purchasing companies.

The growers' leaders urged the multinational and national tobacco purchasing companies to help the poor peasants to get out of the abject poverty.

Meanwhile, the purchasing season of the Flue-Cured Virginia (FCV) tobacco is expected to be completed in the next three weeks. A leaf manger of a purchasing company told Dawn that the purchase of FCV was likely to continue till September 20.

Meanwhile, sources in Pakistan Tobacco Company and Philip Morris International, Pakistan said that the total demand of tobacco during the current year was 78.36 million kilograms. That said that the total demand of FCV stood at 74.135 million kilograms, this year.

They said that as compared to the previous year, the requirement of FCV and Dark Air-Cured tobacco was higher by 19.30 and 50 per cent, whereas the demand for White Patta and Burley came down by 27 and 10 per cent, respectively. Overall, they said that total requirement of tobacco purchasing companies got increased by 18.37 per cent, this year. Enditem