Rs 300b Agriculture Projects Being Implemented In Punjab

A number of agriculture projects worth Rs 300 billion are being implemented under the Prime Minister's Agriculture Emergency Programme across Punjab

LAHORE, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 20th Aug, 2020 ) :A number of agriculture projects worth Rs 300 billion are being implemented under the Prime Minister's Agriculture Emergency Programme across Punjab.

Director Agriculture Information Punjab Muhammad Rafique Akhtar said this while talking to APP on two-year performance of the Punjab government, here on Thursday.

The Punjab government formulated an agriculture policy last year and its implementation had been started. Under the PM's Agriculture Emergency Programme, over Rs 12 billion were being spent to increase per acre production of wheat, and Rs 8 billion to boost per acre sugarcane yield. Over Rs 5 billion were being spent to increase per care production of oilseed crops, while more than Rs 28 billion for management of watercourses, he added.

Under these programmes, farmers had also been provided modern agricultural machinery worth Rs 300 million on subsidy. During fiscal year 2018-19, farmers had been provided subsidy of Rs 5,000 on per acre cultivation of sunflower and canola and Rs 2,000 on per acre cultivation of sesame.

Under the National Programme for Improvement of Watercourses Phase II, 10,000 water channels were being cemented across the province whereas farmers were also being provided 7,500 laser land levelers on subsidy.

He said that 60 per cent subsidy was being provided to farmers on installation of drip and sprinkle irrigation system. Under the PM's Agricultural Emergency Programme, subsidy was also being given on seeds and fertilizers.

Crop insurance facility was also being provided to farmers under the Crop Insurance (Takaful) Programme to overcome the losses of cotton, rice, wheat crops due to climate changes, calamities and locust attack.

Crops of 339,439 farmers had been insured till now and the Agriculture Department had paid Rs 980 million to the insurance companies as premium.

Rafique said that Punjab Agricultural Marketing Regulatory Authority (PAMRA) Act was playing a key role in updating the system of agricultural markets on modern lines.

Under a campaign against spurious agricultural medicines and fertilizers, a huge amount of spurious agricultural medicines and fertilizers worth Rs 170 million had been seized since 2018-19.

So far 80 new varieties of different crops had been approved during the last two years while Rs 16 billion had been spent on different development projects of agricultural research.

For controlling locust attack in 24 districts of Punjab, special monitoring had been carried out on over 100 million acres of land whereas modern machinery had been provided to farmers and spray carried out on almost 756,000 acres of land.

During 2019-20, over 100 million tonnes of wheat crop was obtained while more than 200,000 acres of land had been brought under cultivation of gram crop, which helped in obtaining 430,000 tonnes of production. It was 53,000 tonnes more than the previous year. Canola yield was also two times more than the previous year.