APROPOS Sadia Qasim Shah’s letter in Metro Peshawar (Feb 20) regarding the ban on sale of Pakistani fertilisers in Fata for security reasons, thereby forcing farmers to use low-quality smuggled fertilisers.

The issue needs to be addressed through preventive measures instead of banning fertilisers. I suggest registration of dealers by LEAs and monitoring of their stocks by the officials concerned. I would like to add here that there appears to be a strong possibility of non-availability of local fertilisers in entire Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to the unfriendly approach of the provincial agriculture department towards farmers.

It may be recalled that in budget 2016/17, a subsidy of Rs156 per bag of urea and Rs300 per DAP bag was announced. This subsidy was to be shared on a 50:50 basis by the federal and provincial governments.

Last week the Ministry of Food Security had made partial payment of the subsidy claims of manufacturers and importers, withholding amounts yet to be verified by the provinces, including Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

It has been heard from reliable sources that the affected companies are considering options for curtailing the sales or raising selling prices in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa by excluding the subsidy factor of Rs156 and the voluntary contribution of Rs50 per bag by manufacturers, thereby escalating prices to Rs1,705 per bag of urea and Rs2,800 per bag of DAP.

It is strange that the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in scoring political points is pushing the situation to hurt the famer community badly.

Moreover, the provincial government fails to appreciate that the amount of subsidy has already been deducted at the source and their resistance to verify sales is denying disbursement of subsidy to manufacturers who have already passed on the benefit to the farmers.

I urge the chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to kindly save farmers from further agony and follow the example of Punjab which has given them huge incentives.

Muhammad Sagheer

Islamabad

Published in Dawn, February 24th, 2017