LAHORE: Owing to persistent rise in the cost of production, the growth of agriculture sector could see a steep decline, warned Pakistan Kisan Ittehad, here on Wednesday.
Commenting on hike in prices of various inputs, Ittehad President Khalid Khokhar said the recent jump in electricity tariff for tube-wells would break the backbone of already burdened farmers.
Historically, electricity tariff for industry and agriculture was 37.68 and 31.20 (2023-24), 29.92 and 21.68 (2022-23) 21.65 and 13.14 (2021-22), respectively, meaning thereby the agriculture tariff remains lower than industrial tariff. Whereas the new electricity price for agricultural tube-wells has drastically increased to Rs41.02 per unit without taxes, comparing to Rs28.56 per unit for industry, he added.
It is interesting to state that agriculture sector grew more than 6.5pc while industrial sector growth was just 1pc during FY2023-24.
The new electricity tariff is excessively high for a sector that showed highest growth among all sectors.
Water, which is a basic input for agriculture and livestock production, is now unbearably expensive at this rate, he complained.
The use of urea fertilizer has already decreased by 21pc in the last month due to high prices and lowering the purchase power as farmer could not get due price of its produce like wheat and cotton.
Urea prices may be fixed at Rs3,500 per bag at the most, currently it is being sold at Rs4500-4700. If the government’s strategy for agriculture continues in this manner, the sector’s growth could fall to below 2pc next year, he warned.
The government has given billions of rupees to Independent Power Producers (IPPs) belonging to 40 wealthy families at the cost of 240 million common citizens.
Half of these plants have not generated any electricity and were given capacity payments, while the other 25 plants operated at only 8-10pc of their capacity.
This is a form of extreme exploitation or super terrorism affecting the entire nation.
The Kisan Ittehad strongly urged the government to stop payments to the IPPs under the guise of capacity payments, to undo the filthy agreements, and to hold the officials responsible for such agreements accountable. Alternatively, these agreements should be renegotiated.
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