Addressing The Press Conference Sahibzada Mehboob Sultan Also Lauded The Efforts Of Jahangir Khan Tareen In Agriculture

Addressing the press conference Sahibzada Mehboob Sultan also lauded the efforts of Jahangir Khan Tareen in agriculture development of the country

Islamabad, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 2nd Jul, 2019 ) :Addressing the press conference Sahibzada Mehboob Sultan also lauded the efforts of Jahangir Khan Tareen in agriculture development of the country.

The provincial agriculture ministers of Punjab, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were also present on the occasion.

The Minister said that Jahangir Khan Tareen had made lot of efforts to formulate agriculture emergency program which was focused on increased productivity of major crops including wheat, rice, cotton, sugarcane and oil seed.

He said that Tareen had taken all the provinces on board and hold several meetings with them and formed working groups in order to finalize the program.

Meanwhile, Tareen said that PC-1 of Agriculture Emergency Program had been finalized and would be presented in the meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) for approval to launched.

He said overall allocations for the agriculture sector had been enhanced as the Federal government had increase it from Rs 1 billion in its Annual Development Plan last year to Rs 12 billion and same was followed in Punjab and other provinces.

He said that the spending would be taken up to record level of Rs 70 billion in next four years.

He said that the program was a revolutionary step of the government and besides promoting the agriculture sector it would also benefit the local farmers as the special efforts would be made to enhance the per acre yield of all major crops.

Special measures would be introduced to enhance per acre yield of wheat from 35-40 maunds, rice by 10-20 maunds, sugarcane by 650-800 maunds, adding that incentives was announced for the cultivation of oil seeds like canola and sunflower, he added.

In order to make the agriculture produces more competitive, he said that special measures would be introduced for energy, water conservation and pest management to reduce the cost of production.

He said that Rs 220 billion would be spent on the construction of small dams and water course development, adding that 70,000 water courses would be developed.

He said that about 50% water courses would be developed which would help to save about 9 million acre feet water annually and this program would be completed with in next four years.