Admiring Indian eminence in the Agriculture Sector, Punjab Assembly (PA) on Friday suggested the Punjab Food Department to enhance interaction with agriculturists from East Punjab (India) to benefit from their research and methodology.
Legislators while debating on current year’s wheat shortage acknowledged East Punjab’s agriculturist expertise and suggested the Punjab Food Minister Bilal Yasin along with other members of the PA should visit India to observe and adopt the research methodology of Indians.
The legislators boldly admitted that Indians have advantage in the agriculture sector over Pakistan as they were able to produce extra crops from far less area of land than compared to Pakistan. The House was united on the thought of taking guidelines from India to boost local production in the field of agriculture. The assembly speaker advised Bilal Yasin to visit the neighbouring country along with a parliamentary delegation for the purpose. The speaker also advised Yasin that his ministry should focus on research in the field of agriculture as it was the only key to improve the local production of different crops.
During the debate, a treasury member and former Punjab food minister Iqbal Gujjar said though he has no wish to praise India but they must accept that India was getting more agriculture produce than Pakistan. He remarked that despite East Punjab being smaller than West Punjab it is recognized as Food Basket due to its huge production of different crops. Highlighting problems faced by the farmers, he suggested the government to provide subsidy on wheat and the flour separately.
While, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI’s) opposition member Sabtain Khan said that he fully endorsed the speaker’s advice of a delegation visiting India the visit expenditure should be personally borne by the delegation members. Khan also demanded the government to increase wheat rates from Rs 1,200 to Rs 1,500 per maund to benefit the farmers.
Opposition Leader Mehmood-ur-Rasheed urged the government to announce a package of subsidy on in-puts for the small tenants. He warned the government of the looming wheat crisis in the province as wheat production this year remained two million tonnes less than the target.
Moreover, during the PA session which started an hour late under the chairmanship of PA Speaker Rana Mohammad Iqbal on Friday, two newly elected MPAs namely Khurram Wattoo from Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and Zubair Khan from Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) took oaths.
Dear India, please teach us how to farm
