Producing
best quality tobacco is a worst thing to experience. Jampur is a subdivision of
more than 600,000 lives and largest settlement in district Rajanpur of the
Punjab province. Most of its soil produces the finest quality tobacco leaves to
be used in export quality cigarettes and earn foreign exchange for the country.
The stalks mixed with the rough quality leaves are grinded to make snuff,
locally called ‘naswar’ (made by grinded tobacco with little amount of
limestone mixed). The rough leaves and stalks are also sold out in local market
to smoke with ‘huqqa’ (a locally crafted device used for smoking in a way that
smoke crosses through water before one inhales, with two parallel wooden pipes
jointed to the water-pot at the bottom and on the top an inhaler pipe on one
side and tobacco-container on the other top). Citizens have observed that the
number of tobacco grinding mills increased from two or three to almost a
hundred in last 10 years which has caused the size of tobacco cultivating land
increasing over the years as much as almost 70% of total cultivable land. With
this hike wheat crop has plunged down in all the few areas where soil was
favorable for tobacco. Plenty of cases have been observed with cent-percent
family members facing serious health problems that the trade has caused to the
economically down-trodden area.
These
mills, traders and transporters are bluntly and ruthlessly violating
environmental laws, traffic rules and ILO standards. Farmers are not provided
with either safety equipment or healthcare facilities or financial incentives. Extensive
overloading is getting even more extensive as the per-truck tax is increased in
last year and now 70% increase is heard to be announced two days before World
Tobacco Day, an informed effort to reduce tobacco production as suggested in
WHO’s World’s No-Tobacco Day brochure. Make a diehard effort to find a
tobacco-laden properly covered vehicle but alas! You may not. On all sides of
the city hundreds of tons of tobacco stalks are available on roadsides for sale
giving every passerby’s breath a taste. Thousands of women work in the very
field for bit more wages. It is a twist of fate that as the season is over,
almost half of their all-season-income is spend on health problems jeopardizing
their potential for next crop. It is a pitiable issue to notice that
inter-district wheat trade was banned but when it comes to tobacco there is no
potential barrier.
The
mills are located in and around the town in a pattern that none of the citizens
can avoid this air pollutant that stay near earth down in atmosphere due to
gravity. The other problem of the air-pollutants is that they accumulate as an
air mass moves across the region. Thousands of tons of tobacco is transported
daily; first shift while moved to mills after harvesting and second after
processed and
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Stalls of
tobacco stalks for sale on roadside
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Communities of the proximity of each
grinding mills and depot have moved applications for multiple times but of no
use. The alarming situation questions the use of heavy amount of taxes with
rampant increase. Who will be held responsible for the lives and health of
thousands of affected mothers and children and the remedy? There is no
healthcare facility or reasonable financial incentives for the manpower
involved and their families. There are no minimum standards set and observed
for each stakeholder and each stage whilst season which our civil society and
line departments must focus. At least tobacco grinding mills must be dislocated
to far from dwelling units. None of the MPs could forward the voice of masses
and resolve the issue; the priorities of our selected candidate are seriously
questioned on whose shoulders lie this and many more cumbersome
responsibilities. Print and electronic media must be sensitized by civil
society in playing their role to help save the lives on the planet hence by
protecting the environment rather than the pollutants’ stakeholders.
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