Kisan Board of Pakistan (KBP) has presented a four-point charter of demands for development of agriculture sector including giving Cane Procurement Receipt (CPR) status of cheque, abolishing 17 percent GST on agricultural inputs, printing price on each Fertilizer bags and fixing appropriate flat rates for agricultural tube-wells.
All the districts office-bearers of the board have been assigned the task to meet members of the national and provincial assemblies of their respective areas to muster support for approval of these demands. This was announced by the KBP Central President Sardar Zafar Hussein Khan while addressing a press conference in his office here on Monday after his visit to Kasur, Sheikhupura, Gujrat, Mandi Bahauddin, Gujranwala, Sialkot and Narowal to get support from the farmers and the masses for the Board’s charter of demand.
KBP Chief stated that thousands of tube-wells are not operating due to unjustifiable increase in loadshedding and price of the electricity. He said that agriculture was near to death due to non-availability of water. He called for reducing the loadshedding, sending unjustifiable bills and bringing down the electricity tariff. He said that production of major and minor crops had come down due to anti-farmer policies of the previous government. He said that the country even failed to meet official targets of production of rice, cotton and wheat.
He said even new rulers were creating disappointment amongst millions of growers by saying to abolish all sorts of subsidies. He sent a SOS signal to the new government and appealed that it should accept KBP four-point charter of demands to save growers. Sardar Zafar said that he would visit members of the national and provincial assemblies along with growers to convince them to raise their voice for rights of farmers in the next budget. He said if their demands are not met then they would announce next round of ‘save the growers’ movement after consulting all the four provinces.
