Growers urge KP government to establish Pakhtunkhwa Tobacco Board

SWABI: The representatives of farmers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Thursday asked the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf-led provincial government to establish the Pakhtunkhwa Tobacco Board through legislation to protect and safeguard the rights and interests of the poor growers in the province.

“According to Pakistan’s Constitution, agriculture is a provincial subject. However, the federal government had illegally and unconstitutionally taken control of it. Now, under the downsizing policy, the federal government has decided to either abolish or transfer certain government departments and institutions to the provinces, including the Pakistan Tobacco Board (PTB),” Liaqat Yousafzai said in a consultative meeting here.

He urged the provincial government to seize the opportunity and set up the Pakhtunkhwa Tobacco Board to put a halt to the ongoing exploitation of poor growers at the hands of existing PTB and the multinational and national tobacco companies.

The Tehreek-e-Ittehad Kashtkaran Pakhtunkhwa leaders, including TIKP’s chairman Arif Ali Khan, senior vice-chairman Dawood Jan Khan of Ismaila, vice-chairman Iqbal Khan of Shewa, general secretary Asfandyar Khan, joint secretary Shahab Khan, Ahmad Jan Kaka of Marghuz and others also attended the meeting.

The speakers said that the farmers and political leadership in KP had been demanding for a long time that the control of tobacco should be handed over to the province as per the constitution.

“Now that the federal government has decided to withdraw from it and transfer the Pakistan Tobacco Board to the province, it is the responsibility of the KP government to move forward and take the control of the province’s most lucrative crop, tobacco, into its own hands,” Asfandyar Khan said.

The government, he added, should take the necessary legal steps to establish the Pakhtunkhwa Tobacco Board and protect the interests of tobacco farmers.The speakers said the existing PTB was established under the 1968 ordinance. Unfortunately, this law did not include any provisions for the protection of the interests of tobacco farmers.

They added that exploitation of farmers had continued unabated during the last several decades. The growers’ leaders praised late Fazali Haq, who as provincial chief martial law administrator, passed a law known as MLO 487.

This law, they said, provided some protection for the interests of tobacco farmers, which was later constitutionally protected under the 8th Amendment during the government of later prime minister Muhammad Khan Junejo.

According to the MLO 487, tobacco marketing laws were introduced, and for the first time, the interests of tobacco growers were partially protected.However, due to the federal government’s lack of interest and at the behest of tobacco companies, the implementation of these laws had not been carried out in recent years, and the tobacco crop has been under the control of multinational companies.