KARACHI: Sindh’s Agriculture, Supply & Prices Department (ASPD) the other day arranged a balloting ceremony through Sindh Bank’s IT Department for providing 6200 Wheel Type Tractors on a subsidised cost amounting total of Rs1500 million for the current financial year 2017-18.
ASPD transparently invited applications from the farmers through press advertisement and field staff awareness under ADP scheme ‘Provision of Assistance to the Farmers on Purchase of Wheel Type Tractors, Phase-IV’. Department has received total 18329 applications against the allocation of the subsidy of 6200 wheel type tractors.
Subsidy per small tractor is fixed Rs200,000 for 3825 numbers, while Rs300,000 subsidy will be provided on large tractors which are 2375 numbers on the basis of District Wise Quota.
In order to ensure transparency, different checks at the time of submitting an application in banks including biometric verification and duly attested form-VII of land will be done at the bank’s premises and the same procedure will be followed at the time of delivery of tractors.
The Form-VII of the successful farmer will be re-checked through online verification system of revenue department LARMIS prior to the acceptance of application of successful farmers. If anyone failed in verification of documents at any stage, it will be considered as disqualified and will be deleted from the list of successors.
Successful farmers will receive tractors in the premises of Agriculture Engineering Workshops in the presence of a high-level committee of Agriculture Engineers, concerned division convener, representatives of deputy commissioners, assistant agriculture engineer and member concerned workshops.
After completion of balloting, results will be uploaded immediately on websites of Sindh Bank and ASDP.
ASDP had started providing subsidy on purchase of wheel type tractors from 2009-10 and so far total 28,264 numbers with a total subsidy of Rs7498.10 million had provided to the farmers of Sindh which covers the cultivation of 948,734 hectors land for efficient farm mechanisation.
Mechanisation is an essential input for agricultural crop production. It started with green revolution but speed was slow because of affordable of the farming community. Increasing the mechanisation in agriculture means that more tasks can be completed at the right time and more lands can be farmed to produce better quantities of crops and conserving natural resources.