National News

HYDERABAD, (APP): Sindh Growers Alliance (SGA) welcomed
the measure taken in Budget 2016-17 for agriculture sector has said that
government while acknowledging the importance of agriculture
in national economy announced special measures for growers.
Addressing a press conference at Hyderabad Press Club on Monday,
Nawab Zubair Talpur, Ali Bux, Abdul Rahim Dars, Abdul Karim Talpur,
Khan Muhammad Kanboh and others lauded the proposals for decreasing fertilizer prices, waiver in GST on pesticides and lowering the power
tariff for agriculture tubewells.
In budget for current financial year 2015-16 government has announced
cut in power tariff for agricultural tubewells, they said, Punjab
government paid their share of subsidy and growers were extended the
benefit but Sindh government had not provided the relief to growers.
Announcements in the budget 2016-17 regarding decrease in fertilizer
prices involves 50 percent share of provincial governments and growers
were concerned regarding implementation on them owing to past experience, they said.
They said and demanded that provinvcial government should announce
support price of cotton as during current season low cultivation of
cotton was witnessed due to multiple reasons and it was feared that cotton production may remain below the target and affect the economic growth
again.
The growers were of the view that agriculture sector needed more
attention of the government to make it compatible with neighboring
countries.
They also welcomed governments endeavor for promotion of dairy,
poultry and fish farming sectors by announcing special measures for the sectors and said that government must ensure implementation on the measures and constitute monitoring mechanism in this regard so that benefit of governments’ schemes could be delivered at grassroot level.
They also stressed for launching scheme for provision of tractors and
other agriculture machinery for growers on subsided rates and said that transparent balloting should be adopted for the purpose so that growers particularly the small grower could benefit from the scheme.