KARACHI: Pakistan Sugar Mills Association (PSMA) Sindh-Circle on Thursday voicing serious concern over setting up of new sugar mills at the bordering areas of Punjab and Sindh, asked the government to give a second thought to its decision. According to PSMA, 20 sugar mills are already there to process sugarcane in Sindh, but the government has granted permission to seven more investors to install sugar mills at the bordering areas, seems an illogical move on the part of the government. Source told Business Recorder the Sindh government had issued No Objection Certificates (NOCs) to seven investors belonging to ruling party for setting up new sugar mills in the province, raising number of sugar mills from 32 to 39 besides the government is also thinking to issue NOCs to eight more applicant. They said the crop of sugarcane fell by 40 percent, which may further reduce to 10 percent in next crushing season due to rapid change in the trend among the farmers who are switching to cotton from sugarcane. "Increase in the sugarcane processing unit and continuous decline in crop yield coupled with water shortage will aggravate the situation," they added. Presently there are 33 sugar mills functioning in the province, of which 30 sugar mills are operational and two are facing ban from the government for their failure to light-up boilers on government's direction. Shortage of sugarcane crop and increase in the minimum support price by the growers may unfold a new war among the existing sugar mills, the sources maintained. They said the sugar mills in the province are already working below 50 percent of their crushing capacity due to shortage of sugarcane." "The existing sugar mills have 28 million tonnes crushing capacity in 150-day season, whereas sugarcane crop in Sindh ranges from 9 million tonnes to 19 million tonnes, which could not meet the requirement of the existing mills," they said. Setting up sugar mills in the country has become a habit of politicians for achieving their political objectives, said Qurban Ali Shah, President, Sugarcane Growers Association - Sindh Circle. Setting up of sugar mill is not a feasible venture in the province any more, he added. He demanded of the government to cancel NOCs for sugar mills and reject all the pending applications received in this regard. He urged the government to work on research and development for enhanced cane production to give a sigh of relief to the sugar industry in the country.