AsiaNet-Pakistan Premier Editorial Content and Press Release Distribution Service
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has announced a mega Kissan Package under which farmers will be provided subsidized loans worth 1800 billion rupees.
Announcing the package in Islamabad on Monday evening, he said as compared to previous year the increase in these loans is 400 billion rupees.
The Prime Minister said to facilitate the farmers, the coalition government will provide a subsidy of over ten billion rupees to waive off mark-up fee on the loans availed by farmers of flood affected areas.
The Prime Minister said this mega package also includes loans worth 50 billion rupees for the youth of rural areas that wants to invest in agriculture sector. For this purpose, the government will provide 6.4 billion rupees as a subsidy on mark-up of loans.
The Prime Minister said after successful negotiations with the fertilizers producers, the new price of DAP has been fixed to 11,250 rupees per bag. For this purpose, the government negotiated a subsidy of 2500 rupees per bag with the fertilizer producers.
He said under this package five billion rupees has been reserved to provide subsidy on mark-up of loans that will be provided to landless peasants of the flood affected areas. He said 1.2 million bags of certified seed will be provided to the farmers of flood-hit areas.
The Prime Minister said Small and Medium Enterprises will be regularized for investment in Agriculture sector. The SME’s interested in investment in this sector will be able to get loans on subsidized rates and for this purpose we have fixed 6.4 billion rupees. Under their modernization scheme 10 billion rupees were fixed.
The Prime Minister said keeping in view the increased prices of new tractors, the import of used tractors has also been permitted and now the farmers can import second hand tractors up to five years of their manufacture date. The subsidy on the duty of five-year old tractor will be 50 percent while the duty on a three-year old tractor will be 36 percent. He said duty has been reduce from 35 percent to 15 percent to attract new entrepreneurs in the field of tractor manufacturing.
Shehbaz Sharif also announced import of five hundred thousand tons of Urea. He said the import of two hundred thousand tons of Urea has been completed while the remaining will be completed soon. He said for this purpose we have provided a subsidy of 30 billion rupees.
The Prime Minister further said it has been allowed to import 2.6 million tons of wheat out of which one million tons has already reached Pakistan while the remaining 1.6 million tons will be procured to avert any kind of shortage of this commodity in the country.
Regarding relief in electricity bills for farmers, Shehbaz Sharif said that there are around 300,000 agri tube-wells in the country, and the government has planned to solarize these tube-wells for which a massive subsidy will be provided. He said a flat rate of 13 rupees per unit will be charged on agricultural tube-wells.
Source: Radio Pakistan