KARACHI: Pakistan Cotton Ginners Association has announced to suspend the purchase of cotton nationwide and stop the delivery of cotton to textile mills against heavy taxes on the cotton sector in the budget and abnormality in the power tariff of the ginning sector.
Chairman Cotton Ginners Forum Ehsanul Haque told Express that 72% GST is already imposed on the ginning sector, which PCGA had appealed to the federal government several times to reduce it, but in the recent federal budget oil cake (open Banula) was not only levied an additional ten percent GST on sales.
He said that the fixed charges of electricity for the ginning factories have also been extraordinarily increased by 2 thousand rupees per kilowatt hour due to which additional bills of at least 6 lakh rupees per month have to be paid even if the ginning factories are closed. Must do.
He said that hundreds of cotton ginners from all over the country participated in the emergency general body meeting of PCGA held in Sukkur yesterday against these taxes. That under these conditions it is not possible to continue the ginning business and since cotton ginners have already been imposed 11 different types of taxes due to which the ginners are suffering from severe economic crisis.
It was decided in the meeting that along with immediate suspension of cotton procurement across the country, textile mills will not only be given delivery of already sold cotton but will also not be sold any more cotton to them. He will stick to his decision until the demands of PCGA are accepted, for which all the responsibility will fall on the federal government.
Ehsan-ul-Haq said that if the supply of cotton to textile mills is suspended due to the PCGA strike, it will adversely affect Pakistan’s exports of textile products, while farmers are already bankrupt due to non-sale of wheat at the government price. And now if the purchase of cotton by the cotton generators is not resumed, the survival of the farmers will face the worst threats. He called on the federal government to immediately consider the demands of the PCGA and approve them so that the economic cycle can continue.
