Immediate relief to farmers demanded

Farmers Associates of Pakistan (FAP) Chairman Shah Mahmood Qureshi has said government must adopt effective steps to provide immediate relief to farmers who were badly affected because of water shortage, marketing crisis and unjustified increase in agricultural inputs.
While briefing the newsmen after general body meeting of the FAP here at Lahore Press Club on Thursday he said increased production cost of agriculture commodities had created a lot of problems to the growers, and demanded of the government to build water reservoirs as country urgently required dams.
He regretted that government did not proceed forward in this direction and water crisis was looming large.
"If the government claims to be farmer-friendly, it should reduce current electricity tariff for agriculture purposes by 50 per cent," he added.
Shah Mahmood Qureshi said shortage and price hike of urea would continue in coming months as government imported it on very high prices as compared to local rates.
He also warned middlemen would fleece wheat growers due to emerging situation, therefore there was need to take immediate steps by the government to address the situation.
He contradicted government's claim about reduction in rates of pesticides in the backdrop of tax exemption on import of active ingredients and cited that government announced withdrawal of import duty and other taxes on tractors, but farmers were being compelled to pay extra Rs 90,000 on delivery of tractors, he claimed. A company has increased the prices of tractors by Rs 40,000", he added.
Chairman FAP was of the view that government should give 50 per cent relief to farmers on water tax (abiana) as they were facing 40-56 per cent shortage of water.
The FAP chief urged to expedite providing connections of agriculture tube wells besides making availability of laser-levelling equipment as the laser-levelling equipment of water management wing were out of order in many districts.
Qureshi, who is also central leader of PPP (Parliamentarians) claimed that political intervention was spoiling lining of watercourses project as nazims of various districts were imposing their liking and disliking. He also emphasised not to collect 20 per cent amount of watercourses lining from farmers.