Sindh won’t issue wheat support price due to IMF condition, PA told

The Sindh government will not be able to offer the support price to wheat growers this year due to one of the pre-conditions set by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to approve the financial assistance package for Pakistan.

Agriculture Minister Sardar Muhammad Bakhsh Khan Mahar disclosed this while taking part in the third session of the pre-budget debate in the provincial assembly on Wednesday.

Mahar conceded that several serious issues can emerge in the farming sector if the government does not offer the wheat support price to growers unlike in the past years.

He said the situation in the agricultural sector has already been alarming due to the weak economic situation of growers. The income of farmers has been on the decline against rising input costs of farming activities, he added.

He also said this alarming situation can even threaten Pakistan’s food security. He admitted that the provincial government had imposed agricultural income tax due to the IMF, but such a decision was necessary for the sake of Pakistan.

He informed the PA that an online registration system has been launched by the provincial government to issue Hari Cards. He said the cards would provide the mechanism for extending assistance to small farmers.

He told the House the provincial government would launch insurance schemes for crops. He said solar power systems would be installed for running tube wells for farmlands. He also disclosed that a second agriculture university would be set up in the province in Ghotki.

He informed lawmakers that his agriculture department would train farmers to grow crops with less availability of irrigation water. Mahar, who also holds the portfolio of the sports department, invited legislators to present to him suggestions to build playgrounds in Karachi.

Taking part in the pre-budget discussion, Culture Minister Syed Zulfiqar Ali Shah said the provincial government would build more public libraries in the province, adding that opposition legislators may also submit their suggestions in this regard.

Shah said a scheme would also be launched for the digitisation of libraries. He said the provincial government, in partnership with the Pakistan Railways, has launched a Desert Safari Train from Karachi to Thar.

Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro said the availability of potable water for the residents of the urban parts of the province would be curtailed if the federal government built more canals on the Indus River.

Shoro said Karachi’s residents should realise that a decreased level of water in the Indus River would create a shortage of piped water supplied to their households. He said that there is no excess water in the Indus River for proposed farming activities in Cholistan.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) MPA Arsalan Pervez said parts of his PS-98 constituency in Karachi had been ruined owing to “sheer neglect shown by the Sindh government”.

Pervez lamented that the government had “completely ignored the development of Karachi” despite the provincial capital generating up to 70 per cent of the fiscal resources for the national exchequer. He said road networks in the city are in a shambles due to a dysfunctional sewerage system in residential areas.

MQM-P legislator Amir Siddiqui, said that no new sewerage system scheme has been launched in his constituency in the past 20 years. He said Karachi’s public education system is in a shambles, with academic standards lagging behind even that of Afghanistan’s. Billions spent under the World Bank-funded CLICK project have failed to transform Karachi, he added.

Pakistan Peoples Party lawmaker Asif Khan said water shortage is one of the alarming civic problems of Keamari. He called upon the provincial government to undertake development works on islands near Keamari’s coastal belt.

Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf MPA Wajid Hussain Khan said residents in his constituency in Landhi have been suffering from an acute water shortage because of the “undue supply of water to industries”.