MULTAN City News

Multan locality without electricity for three days
From Our Correspondent
MULTAN: Residents of Lohar Colony staged a demonstration against electricity loadshedding here on Friday.
The protesters blocked Multan-Vehari-Bahawalpur Road and Dera Ghazi Khan Road to register their protest. They also burnt tyres. They were chanting slogans against the government. They were also carrying placards and banners. The protesters danced to the beats of drums.
The people said that their locality had been without power for the last three days. They said that they had lodged several complaints but to no avail. They criticised the government for its failure to end the loadshedding from the country. A protester, Muhammad Hussain, said: “It is hard to survive without power. Neither could we prepare Sehr nor could perform any work. It is really unbearable and painful but the authorities are not ready to entertain our complaints.”
AWARENESS DRIVE FOR MANGO GROWERS: The Punjab Agriculture Department has launched an awareness campaign in 10 mango-growing districts for the growers to improve quality of mangoes and reduce losses during the harvest, storage and transportation, said Punjab Agriculture Information Assistant Director Naveed Asmat Kahloon.
Talking to newsmen here on Friday, he said that the 10 districts were Multan, Khanewal, Muzaffargarh, Lodhran, Bahawalpur, Bahawalnagar, Rahimyar Khan, Rajanpur, Bhakkar and Jhang. He said that the maintenance of the orchards was necessary to produce good quality mangoes. The pruning of mango trees had become an essential feature of the mango farming, he added. He said that Pakistan had limited SPS management capacity to address the food safety, animal and plant health. Therefore, it was imperative that Pakistan developed an integrated, coordinated SPS management and control system, he added.
Although the country was blessed with natural high quality mangoes, having inherent superior taste, which was unique to this part of the world, like all around the world, export performances had not been up to the mark, he said, adding that Pakistan could improve mango exports by addressing the critical points along the mango supply and value chains to earn substantial foreign exchange.
Naveed Asmat said that Pakistan produced juicy, sweet and fragrant mangoes without stringy fibrous tissue. He said that the fruit matured in 90-140 days after flowering. Pakistan with the production of almost 2 million ton mangoes each year was its sixth largest producer in the world after India, China, Kenya, Thailand and Indonesia, he added. He said that the mango growers should rejuvenate their orchard after every 3-4 years. He said that biological control of fruit fly should be practiced to reduce fruit fly contamination.