Farmers provided Rs538bn assistance under Kissan Package
Business
Farmers provided Rs538bn assistance under Kissan Package
ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – The government has provided Rs538 billion to farmers under Kissan Package in order to revive and develop the agriculture sector of the country, particularly in the areas which were badly affected due to catastrophic floods and torrential rains.
Meanwhile, the government is also providing cash grants to the farmers of flood hit areas for restoring farming activities in these areas and enabling the farming communities to bring their lands under different seasonal crop production for compensating them, said a senior official in the Ministry of National food Security and Research.
He said government had decided to provide cash grants to farmers of flood hit areas of the country and in this regard a strategy was also evolved to maintain transparency and ensure efficiency to provide relief to farming communities of these areas.
He said that these cash grants are being provided under the data compiled for Benazir Income Supports Program (BISP) for ensuring provision of grants to deserving farmers, adding that over Rs6.6 billion would be provided to farmers of flood hit areas.
Meanwhile, he said that government has also approved power subsidy to facilitate the farmers and provide them electricity on affordable rate of Rs13 per unit, adding that the Economic Coordination Committee of Cabinet had approved the scheme of subsidy.
He further informed that after the approval of the ECC, the power subsidy scheme was in place and the farmers would be provided relief on electricity bills of the months of November, 2022, adding that over 300,000 farmers across the country would be benefited.
He said that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had announced a special package of Rs 1,800 billion to promote agriculture sector and provide farmers particularly in the flood hit areas free seeds, inexpensive loans and to bring down prices of fertilizers and electricity for tube wells.
He said about one million tube wells in the country were running on electricity and under the new package the government was also intended to provide interest free loans for 300,000 tube wells for their solarization so that farmers would get free of cost electricity.
