Govt asked to implement 'Smart Subsidy' programme for farmers.

Byline: Iqtidar Gilani

LAHORE -- Smart Subsidy is the only and most appropriate cost effective solution to counter rising farm input costs for growers and increasing farm output price for consumers.

The government must immediately implement 'Smart Subsidy' program for the small farmers in line with its commitment, said Imran Ahmad, Chief Financial Officer Engro Fertilizers while talking to a select group of journalists at a local hotel on Wednesday.

'The smart subsidy is the only solution to support agriculture growth and farmers manage their cost. No benefit should go to large Zamindars who are not paying taxes on their significant agri income', he said.

Imran said 90% of the farmers in Pakistan have a landholding size of less than 12.5 acres while farmers with land up to 12.5 acres hold 48% of the land of the country. 65% of farmers have a landholding size of less than 5 acres, farmers with land up to 5 acres hold 19% of the land of the country while 52% of the farmland is owned by large landlords who represent just 10% of total farmers. Big Zamindars, making a lot of profits, don't pay income taxes as agri income is exempt from income tax. He said any effort to reduce the nationwide fertilizer cost benefits primarily the big zamindars thus efforts to reduce fertilizer price should be smartly managed to ensure that the benefit is passed on to the poor small farmer. Current government has the vision to provide smart subsidy to 3 million small farmers up to 5 acres. As per National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS), government had to finalize the scheme, the budget, firm up monitoring mechanism and implement payments to farmers by July 2019.

Imran further said that the government is spending Rs44b (US$ 300m) on import of urea and producing LNG based urea whereas this money may be spent much wisely through smart subsidy.

The incremental production has passed on no...

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