Uzair bin Farid

The government of Pakistan has disbursed PKR 538 billion to the country’s farmers under the Kissan Package, especially in the flood-hit areas. The primary purpose for the announcement of the Kissan package was to help the farmers financially so that they could have spare cash for making investments in modern equipment and get rid of their outstanding liabilities.

According to an official from the Ministry of Food Security and Research, Kissan package has been designed to help the farmers of the flood-hit regions of the country. He said that those farmers who have sustained losses in the floods of 2022 are being provided with cash grants so that they could revive their livelihoods. Moreover, farmers are also being helped to bring their lands under cultivation for different seasonal crops for increased and sustained output.

He said that the government had evolved a strategy to ensure transparency in the transfer of grants to the farmers, adding that data for deserving farmers was acquired from the Benazir Income Support Database. He said that the government had allocated a total of PKR 6.6 billion for farmers in the flood-hit areas under the Kissan package. 

Further assistance to the farmers will be provided in the form of electricity subsidy, the official informed. He said that the federal government had approved a subsidized rate of PKR 13 per unit of electricity to the farmers, which has already been approved by the Economic Coordination Committee of the Cabinet.

He continued, “after the approval of the ECC, the power subsidy scheme has been put in place and the farmers would be provided relief on electricity bills for November 2022. This step of the government will benefit over 300,000 farmers across the country.” The official said that the total allocation under the Kissan Package announced by the Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif was PKR 1,800 billion. He said under the package farmers will be provided easy credit, high-yielding seeds, and subsidized fertilizers.

He continued by saying that the government has also made plans to convert 300,000 tube wells running on electricity to solar energy. He said this will help the farmers in getting cost-free electricity and save the national grid a lot of energy input for domestic and commercial users.

Credit : Independent News Pakistan-WealthPk