KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Agriculture, Supply and Prices Muhammad Ismail Rahoo on Wednesday said that policy of World Bank (WB) assisted projects should be simplified and eased so that maximum growers and farmers could reap the benefits from the projects, adding that this matter should be raised with World Bank officials.
The provincial minister stated this while presiding over a briefing on Sindh Irrigated Agriculture Productivity Enhancement Project (SIAPEP) at his office.
He directed to expand agriculture projects to tehsil and union council levels to transform the traditional methods of agriculture in line with modern techniques to enhanced crop productivity and saving of precious irrigation water.
He said that great responsibilities of transforming traditional agriculture into industry rest upon the agriculture department. The minister said that he will soon visit the projects to inspect ground realities of projects.
Briefing the meeting, SIAPEP project director informed that the estimated cost of this 6-year project was Rs30139.75 million. As many as 5,500 community water courses, promotion and installation of high efficiency irrigation system at 2648 agriculture farms , provision of 10,100 kitchen garden kits, provision of 1290 laser land leveling equipment, provision of 11,00 deep ripping ploughs, establishment of 1500 farmer field schools, exposure visits of 1000 growers and farmers and others are included in this projects.
He further informed that Rs6141.81 million rupees were released for the project up to the financial year 2018-19, while Rs5181.981 million were spent.
Under the project, about 1050 community water courses were improved, several high-efficiency irrigation systems installed at 400 farms, 3,500 kitchen garden kits have been distributed, exposure visits for 300 farmers and growers arranged.
On the occasion, Agriculture Secretary Agha Zaheeruddin and other officials of the Agriculture Department were also present.
