LAHORE, June 6: Farmers’ bodies said on Monday the government had failed to offer anything concrete to the agriculture sector in the budget, and termed it more of a “business as usual”. Commenting on the budget speech made by the finance minister, the Kisan Board Pakistan secretary-general said though a growth target of 4.3 per cent was fixed for agriculture, the government had failed to explain how it would be achieved.

He said the minister had informed the nation that diesel price in India was Rs40 per litre and our government was taking a hit of Rs7.5 per litre, but he failed to mention that power tariff there was only 30 per cent of Pakistan, tractor price 20 per cent less, fertilizer price almost half and cotton price 20 per cent more. The minister had picked a part of his own choice to justify what he was doing instead of drawing a complete comparison of the agriculture sector in the two countries, he said.

He said the government had reduced duty on cars which were being produced over 87,000 annually in the country, but failed to extend the same relief to tractors having a production of only 31,000.

The agriculture sector needed over Rs300 billion, but the government had claimed to provide only one-third of it. The minister had been silent where the rest of the money would come from. Overall, the budget, he said, was an attempt to justify whatever the government was doing rather than for the betterment of the sector, he said.

Azam Cheema of the Awan-i-Zirat thinks that the government’s failure to allocate funds for any big dam in the country was not a good omen for the agriculture sector. This sector needed a news on big reservoir front, but it had been disappointed, he said.

Similarly, the government had also failed to allocate any funds for research and agriculture marketing. Both these sectors totally depended on government funds. The failure of government in these areas would affect the sector badly, he said.

With the arrival of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), research and marketing had assumed added significance. Duty exemption on machinery may help the agriculture sector in an indirect way, but the sector needed a more direct approach, which the government had failed to adopt, he said.

Aptma’s Punjab Chairman Arif Saeed said the government had finally accepted the longstanding demand of the industry and freed the textile industry of GST in the budget. He said this measure would leave a positive impact on the industry’s growth and boost exports, besides improving liquidity. He said the documented and export-oriented sectors would benefit from the measures announced in the budget.

Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s former president Pervaiz Hanif said the measures like removal of GST on the entire textile chain in the budget would boost exports.

He termed the budget exporter-friendly, adding it, however, did not contain anything for the common people.