Kissan package an eyewash, says Qureshi

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) National Organiser Shah Mehmood Qureshi has said that while the PML-N Kissan package was long overdue, it was more cosmetic than offering substantive relief.
He said even this package only came in the wake of PTI’s Kissan conferences and demands for relief to the besieged farmers. Qureshi said the package was symptomatic of the PML-N’s mindset, which sought high visibility short term projects but fails to address long term issues and interests of the people.
Qureshi made it clear that the present package has ignored the real needs of the farmers and tried to play to the gallery at a time when local body elections are to be held in Punjab and Sindh.
He pointed out that two major demands of the farmers – the introduction of support price index and removal of GST on agricultural inputs - remained unaddressed. “There are no incentives to remove the stagnation in agricultural growth in Pakistan - with average growth in last 5 years remaining under 3%. This has bolstered the cycle of poverty in the country especially in the rural areas. The farmer of Pakistan has never been such badly hit and economically burdened as he is currently,” Qureshi said.
He said that it was extremely worrying that the lease price of agricultural land was on a declining trend. Qureshi stated that due to the sharp rise in the cost of production, all major crops like cotton, paddy, maize and potato were uneconomical at the current market prices.
The PTI leader said that the Rs 341 billion Kissan package was a ‘notional figure’, which failed to provide direct relief to the farmer and only details the presumptive impact of the same.
While the cash support subsidy of Rs 5000 per acre for cotton and paddy farmers was a welcome move which can directly benefit the farmer,
Qureshi reminded that a similar announcement was made last year in respect of paddy farmers but the government failed to implement it, as admitted by the federal minister Sikandar Bosan on a TV show Tuesday.
“The package also lacks details as to how this relief will be provided. Furthermore, the Rs 5000 subsidy is ill timed as it is being announced in the second quarter of the fiscal year when the financial budget has already been passed. The subsidy cost has to be shared between the provincial and federal government and it is unclear as to whether the provincial governments have the resources available at their disposable at this stage of the fiscal year,” he noted.