PESHAWAR
Senior Vice-President Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Agriculture (KPCA) Fazal-e-Elahi Khan today welcomed the decision of federal government to introduce a new tier to document and curb the menace of illicit trade of sub-standard low priced cigarettes.
Fazal-e-Elahi appreciated Finance Minister Ishaq Dar for emphasizing in his budget speech that the sale of illicit cigarettes should be checked as it resulted in loss of revenue for government and also posed a serious health risk due to lack of quality controls. The declining demand for tobacco leaf has put the livelihoods of 75,000 farmers, 300,000 farm workers and 450,000 farm family dependents at risk. The step to introduce a new tier would curb the menace of illicit trade and protect the livelihoods of tobacco farmers and their dependents.
“The introduction of a new tier should reduce the demand for substandard and smuggled illegal cigarettes. As a result, we are expecting the demand for tobacco leaf from all tobacco companies to increase, which will improve the livelihoods of farmers, workers and their dependents”, said Fazal-e-Elahi.
He further asserted that, “We should remember that few decades back tobacco was provided by the government and international donors as an alternate crop to poppy, which used to be widely cultivated across the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Tobacco is an important cash crop and any threat to the livelihood of tobacco farmers will have a severe socio-economic impact”.
