Siraj urges govt to stabilise crops’ prices

LAHORE

Jamaat-e-Islami ameer Senator Sirajul Haq has called upon the government to prepare a comprehensive policy to resolve the issues of growers and stabilise the prices of major crops to improve country’s economy. 

Addressing JI Advisory Council meeting on agriculture at Mansoora on Monday, he said despite repeated announcements by the government, wheat growers were compelled to sell their produce to the middle man on low prices. He said the government had announced procurement target at four million ton wheat but the production this year was almost four times of the official estimate. He said growers were constrained to dispose of their produce at lower rates because of their economic hardships and had to suffer heavy losses. He urged the government to procure every grain of wheat offered. 

Sirajul Haq said production cost of growers had heavily increased during the last couple of years because of the incompetence and corruption of state institutions related to agriculture and the losses in current wheat crop had ruined them further. He said the export of rice had suffered tremendously due to the incompetence and corruption of the  institutions concerned and warned that if arrangements for exports were not made in time, the exporters and rice mills owners would not be able to purchase the crop.

He also urged the government to announce its strategy for stabilising the prices of raw cotton immediately failing which the produce would come down further and affect local industry and exports. He called for granting interest-free loans to growers for Kharif crop so that they could be able to cultivate cotton, maize and paddy on time. He suggested the fixation of raw cotton price at Rs4,000 per maund, Basmati rice at Rs2,500 per maund, and maize at Rs1,800 per maund to enable the growers to plan well in time.

Tevta: Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (Tevta) will certify 28,000 uncertified skilled workers for free through its Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) programme up to June 30, 2016. 

According to a press release, Tevta Chairperson Irfan Qaiser Sheikh while addressing a progress review meeting of RPL programme through Ustad Shagird system on Monday said Tevta had issued nationally as well as globally recognised certificates to 19,000 uncertified skilled individuals up to April 15, 2016.  Irfan Qaiser said Tevta wanted to train every segment of society so that they might become skillful because it was need of the hour. Keeping in view the overwhelming response received in the 1st phase of Ustad Shagird programme, it had been extended in all major institutes of Tevta across Punjab.