KARACHI - The Public Accounts Committee of the Sindh Assembly has recommended the government to hire services of the legal experts for the recovery of Rs1.14 billion outstanding dues from 31 sugar mills since 1979 and took serious note of the encroachment of 40 acres of coconut research station in Karachi and agriculture engineering workshop land in Khairpur worth billions of rupees. The PAC has decided to write to the Sindh Governor for taking action on encroachment of the land. The PAC, which met with Sardar Jam Tamachi Unner in the chair on Wednesday took audit report for the year 2004-05 and 2005-06 of the Sindh Agriculture Department, which observed that there had been deterioration, intentional negligence and mismanagement in the Sindh agriculture. It settled 5 paras out of 16 from year 2005-06, while all 6 paras from 2004-05 were again deferred till next meeting. Sardar Jam Tamachi Unner remarked that every government department in the province was facing mismanagement problems due to which Sindh has suffered. He said that since agriculture department was an important one but negligence was eating in very marrow of this important department because of which it could not yield the desired results despite allocation of huge funds. He said that there was need for declaring the agriculture as an industry to attract the investors. He said that if corporate farming is allowed, it will have positive impact on the agriculture sector, generate competition and will have good effect on raising per acre yield. Responding to a query, Jam Tamachi said that despite favourable High Court Judgment, the agriculture department failed to evacuate 40 acres of land of coconut research farm, Karachi that was encroached upon 20 years back. He said it looked as if the department had planned not to approach the apex court for appeal against the encroachers and added that there was dire need of stern action against those who connived at with the encroachment. Replying to another question regarding use of bulldozers, he said that bulldozers were being used in illegal works such as destruction of forest land and trees as there was no more need of land leveling Sindh. Jam Tamachi said that since agriculture department was a big department which had many wings so it should be de-centralized. Replying to a query, the audit party informed the committee that Rs110 million, out of Rs985 million have been recovered from various departments. It came into the fore that audit party succeeded to recover an amount of Rs9 million from agriculture department. When his attention was drawn towards regularization of village located at the land of agriculture engineering, Jam Tamachi directed the secretary of the committee to write letter to the chief minister to get vacate the occupied land.