KARACHI: The Sindh government with collaboration of the World Bank has planned mega projects to modernise the agriculture sector, improve its productivity and access to market and in this connection the Sindh agriculture growth project with estimated cost of Rs 8,867.463 million is under way.

This was stated by Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah while presiding over a meeting held at CM House on Tuesday to expedite the implementation of the project which was recently launched with the 86 per cent financial assistance of the World Bank.

The chief minister said that another project of the Sindh Irrigated Agricultural Productivity Enhancement had also been prepared with estimated cost of Rs30 billion, which was likely to be launched soon to bring about a green revolution in the province and increase productivity and farm income for betterment of socio-economic condition of farmers.

He said Sindh had great potential in the agriculture sector as its economy depended on the agriculture products. The agriculture and livestock were providing income and employment to 70-80 per cent of population of this province, he added.

The chief minister said that the agriculture growth project had been planned to improve productivity and market access of small and medium producers of onion, chillies, dates and rice and avoid the post-harvest losses through efficient management and modern technology.

In addition to that, the component of livestock had also been included in this project to improve milk production, dairy development and its marketing to benefit farmers and also for rehabilitation of flood / rain-hit infrastructure of the livestock sector.

Additional chief secretary Mohammed Wasim informed the meeting participants that out of the total cost of Rs8,867.463 million project, Rs6,236.778 million was reserved for the agriculture component while the remaining amount of Rs2,630.685 million for livestock component of the agriculture department.

He said only Rs1,226.225 million would be contributed by farmers / community while the rest of the amount would be provided by the World Bank as a soft loan. This project was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council in February 2014 to be completed in June 2019.

The chief minister said apart from this, the government was also implementing many other projects for conservation of water for the benefit of growers, including lining of a part of the Rohri Canal.

Published in Dawn, May 6th, 2015

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