Punjab government has allocated sum of Rs 24.53 million for providing subsidy to the farmers of Faisalabad district under a tunnel farming technology promotion programme for growing unseasonal vegetables. District Officer Agriculture (Extension), Chaudhry Abdul Hameed stated this in a function held here at EDO Agriculture office for distributing the cheques of subsidy amount among the farmers.
He said that 220 big and small tunnels would be established in the district out of which 162 tunnels had been set-up in the different villages by the farmers. He said that subsidy of Rs 6 million had so far been paid to the farmers, which were selected through the balloting under a prescribed process.
He said that 50 percent subsidy of the total price of a tunnel was being provided to the successful applicants according to which sum of Rs 1,60,000/- for big tunnel and Rs 60,000/- were being provided for establishing small tunnel. He claimed that all process had been made transparent from receiving applications, its draw and providing amounts of subsidy to the farmers, as directed by the Punjab govt. under the prescribed terms and conditions.
He explained that under the agreement the tunnel farmer was bound to continue cultivation of unseasonal vegetables who were utilising the benefits of this scheme. He advised the tunnel farmers to extend the tunnel farming by guiding their fellow farmers in their village so that the required objectives could be achieved, as desired by the Punjab govt. for increasing the yield of agriculture. He said that the tunnel technology was being successfully implemented and good results were achieving in growing the unseasonal vegetables.
EDO Agriculture Rana Farman Ali Khan while addressing the farmers said that the every possible co-operation and technical guidance was being extended to the farmers for getting the maximum yield of agriculture produce. He stressed that farmers should also interact with each other and exchange their agriculture experience for promoting the advance technology of cultivation.
He highlighted the Punjab govt. farmers friendly policies and said that huge funds had been allocated by the CM Punjab Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif under various welfare schemes for strengthen the agriculture sector. Later the EDO Agriculture distributed the cheques of subsidy amounts among the farmers.