ISLAMABAD: The government’s consent to abolish general sales (GST) on agricultural inputs seem to have failed to satisfy landowning lawmakers, who were in virtual revolt in the National Assembly on Friday to press their demand for higher crop prices, forcing a review of the issue by a house standing committee.

Some members of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) were in the forefront of protests against a report of the standing committee on food security and research that recommended abolition of GST on agricultural inputs but sidestepped the farming community’s demand for higher support prices for wheat, rice, cotton and sugarcane.

The outbursts came only a day after the committee’s report was adopted by a poorly attended house without a debate, reflecting a flawed discipline in the ruling party and somewhat bold assertion by landowners from the main growing Punjab province even after Food Security and Reaearch Minister Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan had told the house only a week ago that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif wanted giving relief to the agricultural sector by cutting production costs instead of raising prices of crops every now and then.

In an unusual move, despite the report’s adoption by the house on Thursday, Deputy Speaker Murtaza Javed Abbasi, chairing the proceedings at the time, referred the document back to the PML-N-dominated standing committee, whose Thursday’s report recommended that “the GST levied on agricultural machinery, fertilisers, pesticides and other agricultural input items should be waived off in the best interest of farmers” but said that even an intensive discussion failed to develop a consensus fixing support prices of wheat and other crops.

A PML-N lawmaker from Punjab, Raza Hayat Harraj, a member of the standing committee who was not present during the report’s adoption by the house on Thursday, said the report did not mention a walkout from a committee meeting by him and another party colleague, Rao Mohammad Ajmal Khan, and that the committee chairman had signed the report without reading it.

He said sugarcane was selling at Rs150 per 40 kg while the standing committee was informed of support prices of Rs 180 and 182 per 40 kg fixed by the provincial governments of Punjab and Sindh respectively and reiterated oft-stated complaints about lower prices of other crops.

While Mr Harraj was also supported by three other landowners from Punjab, including Sardar Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari, a son of the late former president Farooq Ahmed Khan Leghari, and Mir Munawar Ali Talpur, a member of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party and a brother-in-law of former president Asif Ali Zardari, the deputy speaker ruled that the matter “stands referred back to the standing committee”.

MQM-PML-N SPAT: Despite signs of an emerging cooperation between the two parties in recent months, a senior member of the opposition Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Abdul Rashid Godail, had a surprise dig at the PML-N government in Punjab by asking why Lahore had “nowadays become a crime centre” after referring to some incidents like a June 17 police shooting in Lahore that left 14 followers of Pakistani Awami Tehreek Allama Tahirul Qadri dead and Wednesday’s police baton-charge on a demonstration by blind people.

He also acknowledged violence plaguing the MQM stronghold of Karachi, while responding to protests from PML-N benches, but said: “Presently, Punjab’s crime rate is the highest of all provinces.”

That brought a rebuke for the MQM from a PML-N member from Punjab, Rajab Ali Baloch, who said a “particular party” was crying down Lahore for some days probably after “taking a line from somewhere” and added: “It was after the spread of extortion and target killings in “their place” that these crimes came to Lahore.

Published in Dawn December 6th , 2014