Growers protest gunny bags shortage

GUJRANWALA, April 30: Wheat growers blocked Naushera Virkan-Tetley Road to protest the non-availability of gunny bags at the procurement centre in Naushera Virkan on Saturday. The protesters staged a sit-in and shouted slogans against the officials of revenue and food departments. They demanded of the government to provide them gunny bags immediately as their wheat was lying in the open sky. Reports said the procurement of wheat could not be started because the district administration and the food department failed to provide gunny bags to farmers. The middle men (commission agents of grain markets) and flour mill owners were buying wheat from farmers between Rs825 and Rs850 per 40kg instead of the government fixed price of Rs950. Farmers threatened that they would not provide even a single corn of wheat if gunny bags were not supplied to them within 24 hours. The district admin istration said that gunny bags had been provided to revenue and food departments and the distribution would be started shortly. TEACHERS SUSPENDED: Eight schoolteachers were suspended from service while annual increments of 100 others were stopped on the charge of absence from duty here on Saturday. The education authority also issued show-cause notices to all these teachers. Reports said that EDO (Education) Ghazanfar Hussain Sani paid surprise visits to various secondary schools in the district and found most of the teachers absent from duty. The EDO (health) also found that several teachers marked their attendance and then slipped away without taking any permission from their superiors.