Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Punjab President Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo has warned that the PPP government would join in the sit-ins of All Pakistan Kissan Ittehad if it failed to fix the support prices of munji, basmati rice, phutti and maize.
In a statement issued Saturday, Wattoo said that the government was solely responsible for big losses incurred by farmers who could not get due returns for their hard work due to non announcement of support prices. The government’s negligence was the physical manifestation of its anti-farmer policies, he asserted.
Wattoo demanded that the government should immediately fix support price of basmati rice at the rate of Rs 2,000, munji at Rs 1,200 and phutti at Rs 5,000 per 40 kilogrammes–which were the rates during the previous PPP government.
He also demanded that import of potatoes from India should be banned or detrimental duty on its import should be imposed in face of Indian farmers getting high subsidy rates from government in water, diesel, electricity, tractors and other inputs.
He recalled that the PPP government increased the support price of wheat substantially that led for the country to become a wheat-exporting country the next year rather than a wheat-importing country for the last many years.
The PPP Punjab president also mentioned that the export of textile products was worth $9 billion when the PPP government came to power. He regretted that the whole textile industry was in a “state of disarray” due to excessive load shedding of electricity resulting in a decline in exports, causing losses worth billions of dollars in the national economy.
Wattoo pointed out that the government has failed to cash on the GSP Plus tariff concessions given by European Union (EU) to Pakistani textile exports. Exports of textile have shown a decrease instead of an increase, he added.
Wattoo demanded that tube wells should be supplied undisrupted supply of electricity for three hours instead of one hour after each hour. The present mechanism of supplying electricity to tube wells after one hour does not meet the irrigation requirements of farmers adding three hours uninterrupted supply will serve the purpose of irrigation to a large extent.