ISLAMABAD: The provinces have decided to enhance their share towards the development of agriculture for the first time since devolution, with the combined allocation during fiscal year 2019-20 expected to be at Rs50 billion.

Announcing this development at a news conference on Thursday, Minister for National Food Security and Research Mahboob Sultan said that in the post-devolution period, provinces did not give importance to the agriculture sector and allocation in the development budget was reduced by 60 per cent.

Despite the fact that agriculture is a provincial subject, during the next fiscal year the federal government will provide Rs12bn to provinces for the agriculture sector, he said.

The minister said the government is launching a five-year programme worth Rs280bn to improve the agricultural sector in consultations with the provinces.

An amount of Rs218bn will be spent during the next fiscal year on the improvement of water productivity through building water infrastructure including small water conservation projects. An allocation of Rs44.8bn will be spent for increase in yields of wheat, rice, sugarcane and cotton.

Published in Dawn, June 14th, 2019