July 16, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 15, 1424

ISLAMABAD, July 15: The government will provide Rs150 million for completion of Crop Maximization Project aimed at enhancing productivity of agriculture sector by 30 to 40 per cent on sustainable basis.

The objectives of the project are to increase food production through enhancing crop productivity, ensure food security and alleviate the poverty through improving income of small farmers and build a sustainable mechanism to ensure continuity for the productivity enhancement food security programme even after termination of the project.

According to official sources the target of the project is to increase productivity by 30 to 40 per cent over benchmark productivity level, form Village Organization based on Water User’s Associations, On-Farm Water Management through improving watercourses and redesign farms with PLL application, increase farm income by introduction of income generation interventions and establish a revolving fund in each village for sustaining the productivity enhancement programme.

Provision of micro credit to small farmers after completion of the project and train farmers and staff for using new technologies in agriculture also included in the targets.

ECNEC had approved the project on May 3, 2002 and besides MINFAL the governments of the Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Sindh and Azad Jammu and Kashmir are liable to carry out the task.

A sum of Rs238 million was allocated in the original PSDP for the project which was reduced by Rs100 million in June 2002 and the second cut of Rs50 million was proposed on September 7, 2002. On the pursuance of MINFAL, Rs50 million has been restored but still the project is short of Rs100 million.

The project will be carried out in districts Muzaffargarh, Rahim Yar Khan, Sahiwal, Sargodha, Sialkot and Gujranwala of Punjab province while Hyderabad, Nawabshah, Sanghar and Larkana of Sindh province and Bannu, & D.I. Khan in NWFP.

In Baluchistan it would be implemented in Nasirabad and Loralai and Lungarpura (Muzaffarabad) in Azad Kashmir.—APP