Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FPCCI) has expressed concern over ignoring militancy-hit Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in federal fiscal budget, and demanded to announce special incentives to revive the terrorism affected economy of the province.
This was stated by vice President Riaz Khattak while talking to a group of reporters here on Tuesday. He said the government did not appropriate steps to stabilize and revitalize the terrorism-hit economy of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the federal budget even though it was badly affected by years of militancy. FPCCI Regional Office KP lauded the allocation of Rs 100 billion for rehabilitation of IDPs. However, it voiced disappointment over the failure to provide packages to revitalise war-affected industries in the province.
"Federal budget have completely ignored the damaged industries of K-P," quoted FPCCI Vice President Riaz Khattak. He further added industrialists of the province are disappointed as no efforts are being made to revive industries which were affected due to a lack of civic state and a decade of wars.
"The privileges that were announced for industries will not benefit K-P as all such industries are situation in Punjab," Khattak said. Though, he said business community has appreciated the allotment of funds for the construction of Diamer-Bhasha Dam, Dasu Dam and Chashma Right Bank Canal project. He added this would encourage the government to keep its pledge to produce 10,000 megawatts of electricity by 2018.
FPCCI Regional Standing Committee, Chairman Ahmad Jawad has said that no incentives were allocated for the horticulture exports in the 2016-17 budget which was already required due attention, as KP province is known as the hub of horticulture produce. "We had the expectation that they were given due incentives to establish value chain infrastructure under PPP mode in order to increase the exports in fresh fruits and vegetables sector from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, but no announcement was made during the budget speech of finance minister, he remarked.
More or less no concrete package was announced for the farmers of this country, as was proudly announced in the speech of FM." The encouraging thing to reduce the agriculture tube well tariff which will be available at the rate of 5.35 per unit; he said He said federal government announced to reduce the rates of Urea and DAP fertilizer by Rs 1400 and 2500 per bag respectively which was a not a big relief and secondly federal and provincial governments would share a subsidy of around Rs 40 billion. "I doubt it will work because Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is already facing financial crunch. And like that of the Kissan Package, the province could not put its share in the subsidy. This time, too, the scheme may face problems," Jawad objected.
We must understand agriculture sector has a very vast field and government should be focus at every step of this sector for the revival. "He said the cost of production in the country had increased than the prices of the produce but the government system to ensure minimum support price for agro produce has become ineffective. Still he said no measures have been proposed to this effect in the federal budget"
FPCCI Standing Committee Chairman also said the government should have proposed measures to do away with the dysfunctional marketing system for the agro produce so that the agriculture sector could be saved from collapse before approval of the budget.
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