Islamabad, Oct 31 (PTI) Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Monday unveiled Rs 1,800 billion in relief for the revival of the agriculture sector by helping the farmers.

Announcing the mega Kissan Package in Islamabad, the announced package was Rs 400 billion more than the previous year, saying that it was prepared to address the needs of the flood-affected areas as well as for the welfare of the farmers.

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He announced to provide loans, subsidise fertilisers, lift the ban on the import of used tractors, decrease customs duty on the import of plants to set up tractor manufacturing units and subsidy on solar tube wells.

“This mega package also includes loans worth 50 billion rupees for the youth of rural areas that want to invest in the agriculture sector. For this purpose, the government will provide 6.4 billion rupees as a subsidy on the markup of loans,” he said.

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The Prime Minister said after successful negotiations with the fertiliser producers, the new price of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) has been fixed at 11,250 rupees per bag. For this purpose, the government negotiated a subsidy of 2,500 rupees per bag with fertiliser producers.

He said under this package Rs 5 billion were reserved to provide a subsidy on the markup of loans that will be provided to landless peasants of the flood-affected areas.

He said 1.2 million bags of certified seed will be provided to the farmers of flood-hit areas.

He said Small and Medium Enterprises will be regularised for investment in the agriculture sector and SMEs interested in investment in this sector will be able to get loans at subsidised rates and the government fixed Rs 6.4 billion for this.

The Prime Minister said keeping in view the increased prices of new tractors, the import of used tractors has also been permitted and now the farmers can import second-hand tractors up to five years of their manufacture date.

The subsidy on the duty of a five-year-old tractor will be 50 per cent while the duty on a three-year-old tractor will be 36 per cent. He said duty has been reduced from 35 per cent to 15 per cent to attract new entrepreneurs in the field of tractor manufacturing.

Prime Minister Shehbaz also announced the import of 500,000 tonnes of Urea. He said the import of 200,000 tonnes of Urea has been completed while the remaining will be completed soon. “We have provided a subsidy of Rs 30 billion for this purpose,” he said.

The Prime Minister further said it has been allowed to import 2.6 million tonnes of wheat out of which one million tonnes has already reached Pakistan while the remaining 1.6 million tonnes will be procured to avert any kind of shortage of this commodity in the country.

Regarding relief in electricity bills for farmers, he said that there are around 300,000 Agri tube wells in the country, and the government has planned to solarise these tube wells for which a massive subsidy will be provided.

He said a flat rate of 13 rupees per unit will be charged on agricultural tube wells, adding that the package included the provision of free seeds, measures to reduce di-ammonium phosphate (DAP) prices and the availability of urea in the country.

He said that the government expects the package would yield results in a few months, adding that the package will also help increase the country's exports.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)