TIMERGARA: Owners of private forest nurseries in Lower Dir on Wednesday warned to stage a protest sit-in in front of the Chief Minister`s House in Peshawar if the forest department did not pay them the outstanding amount within a week.

Talking to mediapersons here, Hazrat Islam, Salahuddin, Sajjad Hussain and other farmers said that they had set up private nurseries in line with the `Billion Tree Tsunami Afforestation Project` under agreements signed with the forest department.

They said that they distributed millions of saplings among the deserving farmers on the directives of local forest officers.

`We are not being paid for the last several months though we spent a huge sum of money on setting up these nurseries,` said Mohammad Islam from Chakdara. He said that the owners of nurseries had been visiting the offices of forest department daily, but to no avail.

They demanded of Chief Minister Pervez Khattak and chief conservator forest to take notice of the matter and order payment of their dues within a week. They warned to stage a protest sit-in in Peshawar if the government failed to meet their demand.

An official of the forest department said that all the farmers (owners of nurseries) would be paid as per the agreement made with them when funds were available.