Foreign dependence continues for agri in Sindh budget.

THE outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has affected every sector of the economy. And the agriculture sector is no exception. The Sindh government has reduced the development portfolio under the annual development plan (ADP) for 2020-21. The agriculture sector`s share was reduced as the government`s focus will be on the completion of on-going schemes.

Sindh`s total ADP (excluding foreign-funded programme`s assistance) of 2019-20 stood at Rs208 billion, but this year it stands at Rs155bn, excluding foreign projects assistance.

Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah has, however, announced Rs1bn each subsidy for the provision of pesticides, fertilisers and quality rice seed to farmers with 25-acres of landholdings. A loan scheme is to be launched for haris who would get interest-free loans of Rs25,000.

`Out of the Rs14bn agriculture budget, Rs2.5bn are provincial spending for agriculture`s development while the remaining 90 per cent is donor-funded, which is a liability for us. We don`t know how the subsidy is to be transferred and I genuinely fear that the Rs25,000 loan announced for haris will not be transparently disbursed given past experiences, remarks Nabi Bux Sathio, a progressive farmer from lower Sindh.

In addition to the pandemic, Sindh is also facing locust attacks. Under the National Action Plan announced for controlling it, Sindh`s share is Rs728.8 million while the federal government will pitch in Rs204m for a three-stage programme till June 2021 to curb re-growth and re-hatching of locusts. So far the Sindh government has spent Rs696.19m to control them.

`Sindh government needs to do more than what it is doing.

People of Sindh have voted for Pakistan People`s Party (PPP) that`s why they believe PPP will rescue them, not PTI. Its voters are not concerned what PTI`s government is or is not doing because locust is another pandemic for them,` asserts Miran Mohammad Shah, president of Sindh`s oldest farmers` body, Sindh Chamber of Agriculture.

He himself is a PPP diehard like his late father Syed Qamar Zaman Shah and brother PPP`s MNA Syed Naveed Qamar. He believes a permanent solution for locust control needs to be found by the Sindh government. It is not tenable that swarms of crop-eating pests keep attacking and farmers can keep them at bay through conventional methods.`The procurement of machinery and vehicles is mentioned in the budget but when locusts attack these vehicles and equipment are nowhere to be seen. Budgetary...