LAHORE: Pakistan Kissan Ittehad (PKI) presenting a charter of demand here on Thursday warned the government of staging a ‘Tractor March’ on March 31, 2021 if this charter of demand is not accepted at the earliest. PKI President Khalid Mahmood Khokhar in a statement alleged that growers have serious reservations on the anti-farmer policies of the present regime and feared that agriculture sector may collapse if these policies continued. He said it would lead importing every food items from other countries.

Charter of demand presented by him include fixing cotton support price before sowing season, subsidy on DAP and Urea fertilizers, announcing wheat support price in par with Sindh i.e., Rs 2000 per 40 kilograms, operationalizing the closed plants of Urea fertilizer and reducing electricity tariff to Rs 5.35 per unit and each unit having the same price.

He said that the PM Agriculture package approved by the Prime Minister in March 2020 is yet to be disbursed, the relief in agriculture tube well electricity bills was promised by the Prime Minister to be resolved within 30 days has not yet been granted despite laps of 6 months. The wheat support price demanded to fix at Rs. 2000 per mound was not accepted. Had that price been fixed at right time, every marla of the agriculture land would have been cultivated by wheat, and people would get cheap Atta without fear of smuggling to cross border. DAP prices in the country has touched the sky to a level of Rs. 5000 per bag, no one use DAP in kharif crops if proper subsidy has not timely given to fertilizer sector including Urea. Due to shortage of urea fertilizer during Rabi season farmers have to bear escalated cost of about of Rs. 2 billion. Cost of production has gone up due to escalated prices of fertilizers, diesel, pesticides and farm machinery. It is demanded that cotton support price may be fixed prior to the start of the sowing season.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021