HYDERABAD: A meeting of the Sindh Abadgar Board has termed inadequate the subsidy announced by the government for the farmers in the wake of the drastic raise in petroleum prices.
The meeting was recently held in Hyderabad, in which the growers from different areas of Sindh lamented the government’s decision to increase the prices of diesel to unbearable levels.
The meeting observed that the government had announced a meagre subsidy of Rs1500 per acre to small growers holding the hari card. The participants noted that the hari card, even though it was a positive move of the government, did not cover even the 20 per cent of small growers.
The growers said the government seemed to be unaware of the ground realities, and had absolutely forgotten that even before the current back-breaking increase in the diesel prices, agriculture was in crises as evident from reduced prices of commodities during the last two years, reduced production and natural calamities.
The growers were of the view that this crises were mostly the making of the government due to its decisions such as importing of agriculture commodities at the time of harvesting, halting exports of some commodities at the time of harvesting, and allowing the inputs to increase with zero institutional support in production, seed, technology, or research and development.
They said the decline in the agricultural sector was evident from reduction in the tractor sales and investments. They lamented that mechanisation in agriculture in Pakistan was one of the lowest in the world and region.
