Kisan Board Pakistan (KBP) Chief Sardar Zafar Hussein Khan strongly reacting to the proposed budget for 2013-14 said that one percent increase in Sales Tax will result in five percent hike in the price of agricultural inputs. Hike in electricity tariff, imposition of withholding tax over 1,000 units and withdrawal of subsidy will make impossible to run tube wells for agricultural purposes, Sardar Zafar said while giving his instant reaction on the budget for next financial year.
KBP Chief said shortage of water will not only make impossible to achieve the production targets of different crops but also ruin the agriculture with an impact on all segments of the economy. He feared that it might also lead to a food crisis or famine like situation in the country. Though the government has reduced the rate of interest on small industrial and trading loans to 8 percent only even then it disappointed the growers by not bringing down mark-up ratio on agricultural loans. It shows a discriminatory attitude by the ruling party towards 70 percent of the national population living in rural areas, he observed.
He said that a budget of Rs 1,650 billion deficit will continue to suck blood of the masses in general and growers in particular during coming whole year. Sardar Zafar was of the view that world over agriculture is subsidised to get better results from this sector while in our country rulers are trying to strangulate this sector by withdrawing the subsidies.