The Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) has announced to stage a demonstration in front of the National Assembly building if the charter of demands presented by it is not accepted within next 15 days. "Our demands are aimed at resolving the issues being faced by the growers' community of the country and development of the agricultural sector which contributes 18 percent to the National GDP. Pakistan's 70% exports are agriculture-based and among that 67% is only textiles and cotton. Any decline in one million bales of cotton, reflects in reduction of 1% GDP, showing how agriculture is important for the economy of Pakistan," said PKI President Khalid Mahmood Khokhar.
While talking to Business Recorder, he said some groups in the government with their vested interests were very active in budget preparation and discarded every demand or budget proposal. Even the recommendations of highest committee i.e. special committee on agriculture headed by the Speaker were thrown in the dust bin, which had proposed abolishing fuel adjustment charges on electricity, waiving off 2% GST on fertilizer, reducing electricity charges from Rs 5.35 to Rs 4.00, instead it was made more expensive to Rs 6:85 per unit.
In the current budget, 10% GST is imposed on cotton ginners which is ultimately transferred to cotton growers may be withdrawn immediately. Prices of urea fertilizer have been increased which needs to be corrected. He said that the National Assembly passed a resolution on imposition of duty on import of cotton which was thrown away by Advisor Razak Dawood and resulted in Rs 1800 -2000 price reduction in local market. The National Assembly also passed a resolution to announce a support or indicative price of cotton, which is still hanging between ministries and divisions for more than three months. The ministry of commerce continued to allow illegal import of cotton from Torkhum Boarder which has resulted into massive influx of diseases and insect pests.
The PKI Chief further said that Pakistan is a country with least investment on agriculture research in the region. "We are spending fewer amounts on research than Bangladesh and Nepal. Ex-finance Minster's commitment of Rs 700 million allocations for cotton research was not honored during the budget preparation and zero allocation was made for cotton. The government had announced agriculture emergency, any announcement of emergency requires allocation of special fund to deal with the emergency. For agriculture emergency the crops added to the program clearly have relation to industrialists and big land lords. Cotton was intentionally ignored.
He said a crop like sugarcane which takes over 40 irrigations, issues with marketing, have no role in Pakistan's economy and requires subsidy in export of commodity had been included in the program and a crop like cotton which contributes 57% in exports and lively hood of over 2.4 growers is completely ignored," he alleged.
The seriousness of the government can be seen in locust control, which is devastating millions of acres as the federal government or provincial governments have not made any allocation for it, rather the federal government is relying on contributions and donations from pesticide companies, seed companies, and various associations to procure insecticides and locust management in Sindh and Balochistan province.
Khalid Khokhar said they demand imposition of import duty on cotton import without any delay, 2% GST on fertilizer should be abolished, 3% value addition tax on imported fertilizers should be abolished, and rate of electricity for agri tube wells should be reduced to Rs 4.35 immediately and support price/indicative price of cotton should be announced immediately.
He further demanded that cotton should be included in the agriculture emergency program without any delay. 10% GST on cotton ginners should be withdrawn, fuel adjustment surcharge should be abolished immediately, research allocation for agriculture research should be enhanced to 2% of agricultural GDP and special allocation for cotton research of Rs 700 million should be made as APTMA is not paying cotton cess.
The PKI also staged a protest demonstration at Multan for pressing the government to accept its demands in which a large number of farmers participated.
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