MULTAN, July 15th: Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association (PCGA) and Pakistan Kisan Ittehad on Monday staged a demonstration at Chowk Nawan Shehr and burnt raw cotton to get register their protest against unjust taxation and taking such step which may cause the increase of cost of production. The protest demo was led by Central Chairman of Kisan Ittehad Khalid Mehmood Khokhar, PCGA Leaders Mehr Muhammad Ashraf Mahar, Ex-Chairmen Haji Muhammad Akram, Shehzad Ali Khan, Suhail Mehmood Haral, Ex-Vice Chairman Shaikh Muhammad Aasim Saeed, Khalid Hanif Lodhi, Zaid Ali Khan Haq Nawaz Khan Punian,and Malik Tufail Ahmed.They alleged that Present Government was neglecting the "White Gold" (Cotton) even in its Agriculture Emergency Programme of Rs.309 billion under the pressure of sugar Mafia which is very close to Prime Minister Imran Khan.They have rejected the 10 percent sales tax on sale of cotton, describing its detrimental to the business community and announced to join the protest movement of traders across the country. They bitterly criticized the taxation policy of present government and said that government had put extra burden of tax on those who are already paying taxes. They said that ginners have to pay billions of rupees to the growers in cotton season .How can ginning community afford this deduction on payment and it would also affect the growers indirectly. They announced to join the protesting traders if the federal government did not withdraw withholding tax on banking transactions.
They said that Present regime had claimed to increase the cotton production to the level of 20 million bales but this programme was omitted from the Agriculture Emergency Programme which revealed that Special measures would be introduced to enhance per acre yield of wheat from 35-40 maunds, rice by 10-20 maunds, sugarcane by 650-800 maunds, adding that incentives was announced for the cultivation of oil seeds like canola and sunflower but cotton was completely neglected.Khalid Khokhar said that Ten percent sales tax on cotton, 5 percent on oil-cake(Khal-binola) would badly hit the cotton as well as livestock sectors.In order to make the agriculture produces more competitive, he said that special measures should be introduced for energy, water conservation and pest management to reduce the cost of production.He said that special focus should also be paid on agriculture research, particularly in cotton to improve its production by improving its management.In order to protect the farmers from the exploitations of middle man, he said that the numbers of steps must be taken besides up-grading the existing 56 agriculture markets and establishing new markets in Punjab in order to provide better returns to farmers for their produces.
