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Islamabad: Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani has constituted a seven-member committee to work out a mechanism for bringing price escalation of agriculture inputs within justified limits. The committee will submit its recommendations to the Prime Minister within a week. He also directed the finance team to prepare a fair mechanism of sales tax on agriculture inputs to redress the difficulties of farmers.
The Minister for Water and Power, the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources, the Minister of State for Finance, Mr. Nazar Muhammad Gondal, MNA from Punjab, Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur, MNA from Sindh, Mr. Noor Alam Khan, MNA from Khyber Pukhtoonkhawa and Mr. Amir Ali Magsi, MNA from Balochistan will be member of the committee.
The Prime Minister while chairing a meeting of Parliamentarians at Parliament House this afternoon said that the Government believes to decide matters and policies through collective wisdom. He further said that despite a number of formidable challenges during last three years, the Government had successfully turned challenges into opportunity which speaks for exemplary resilience and courage of the government.
The Prime Minister said that Pakistan’s economy is agro-based and the Government is fully sensitized about the interests of subsistence farmers. He tasked the committee to investigate and recommend appropriate measures against undue increase in the prices of fertilizer, pesticide and agriculture machinery.
Minister of Finance Dr. Abdul Hafeez Sheikh appreciated the Parliamentarians’ concern over the price hike of agri-inputs. He apprised the members that food, health, education and agricultural produce are among those sectors which are exempted from the sales tax.
All the causes of price hike of agriculture inputs were discussed in-depth during the meeting.
The meeting was attended by Mian Manzoor Ahmad Wattoo, Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan, Syed Khursheed Ahmad Shah, Minister for Religious Affairs, Mir Changez Khan Jamali, Minister for Science and Technology, Syed Naveed Qamar, Minister for Water and Power, MNAs Mr. Nadeem Afzal Chan, Mr. Tariq Mehmood Bajwa, Rana Muhammad Farooq Saeed Khan, Mr. Nazar Muhammad Gondal, Mr. Sajjad ul Hassan, Mr. Liaqat Ali Khan, Capt ® Rai Ghulam Mujtaba Kharal, Syed Sumsam Ali Shah Bukhari, Mr. Mehmood Hayat Khan Alias Tochi Khan, Mian Abdul Sattar, Mr. Jehangir Tareen, Mr. Javed Iqbal Warraich, Mr. Nazir Ahmad Bughio, Mr. Ejaz Hussain Jakhrani, Syed Ghulam Mustafa Shah, Syed Amir Ali Shah, Nawab Muhammad Yousuf Talpur, Nawab Abdul Ghani Talpur and Mr. Roshan Uddin Junejo.
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