The reformed general sales tax (RGST) on the agriculture machinery and other inputs will increase farmers' per acre cost of production by Rs 4,000 and reduce the over all agriculture production by 10 percent, Kissan Board Pakistan warned the government here on Sunday.
Addressing a meeting of KBP, its president Sardar Zafar Hussain said though the government will get an additional revenue of Rs 21 billion by levying RGST on the earlier exempted sectors, but it will ruin the rural and agriculture economy of the country. "Levy of RGST on agri inputs has already increased tractors prices by Rs 0.1 million per piece, urea bag by Rs 400 per 50kg bag, DAP fertiliser by Rs 1100 per 50kg bag, and of pesticides prices by 22 percent", he added. He said these additional taxes will increase prices of essential agriculture commodities by at least 30 percent which would be an unbearable burden on the masses who had been crushed by the unprecedented inflation of food items.
Zafar said farmers suffered economic losses of Rs 900 billion during the last year's floods and they were still living a miserable life. "The government foreign aid of billions of rupees but this aid went in the hands of Jialas (PPP workers) and Mitwalas (PML-N workers) and the ordinary farmer is as destitute as he was after the devastating flood.
He opined that the federal and provincial government's wheat procurement policy has failed, as the poor farmers were not getting the government fixed prices of Rs 950 per maund and the extra money is going in the pockets of food and revenue departments' officials and influential people. KBP Secretary Information Haji Mohammad Ramzan said the farming community has not only ensured food security for the country but it was paying billions of rupees in direct taxes in shape of malia, Ushr, Abiana (water charges) etc every year. On the other hand, government has failed to control prices of fertilisers, oil, pesticides and other inputs and has left the farmers at the mercy of the black marketers, profiteers, and fertiliser manufactures, he added.
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