LAHORE: The Punjab Assembly on Tuesday approved with the majority vote of the treasury benches all the demands for grants for the financial year 2019-20, defeating “nos” of the opposition.

Chief Minister Usman Buzdar remained present in the house for some time during which Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi allowed opposition to present just one cut motion on agriculture, applying guillotine to rush through the remaining demands for grants. The cut motion was also defeated with majority PTI votes after Agriculture Minister Nauman Langrial described the budget as the best in the history of Punjab.

The speaker was in such a hurry that he even appeared to have mumbled while speedily reading titles of the so many demands for grants. The “nos” from the opposition and “ayes” from the majority treasury members were also drawn with a lightning speed.

The speaker adjourned the session till Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier, opposition members Chaudhry Iqbal, Zakiya Shahnawaz, Rana Iqbal, Safdar Shakir, Saqib Naseer, Hasan Murtaza, Waris Kalloo and Haji Arshad found faults with the allocations for the provincial agriculture sector. They said the allocations were too meagre, much less than the ones made by the previous Shahbaz government.

They said the government had crushed the farmers by withdrawing subsidies on agriculture inputs, and increasing the prices of oil and power. There was nothing for the much needed research and the ceiling of agriculture income tax had been reduced to further crush farmers.

Minister Langrial said the PTI government had allocated Rs10 billion for development in the agriculture sector as against Rs7 billion of the previous government. It was giving an agriculture policy, and strengthening agriculture marketing.

Quoting figures, he said farmers who produced maize, cotton, potato and wheat hugely benefitted from the government policies in the past nine months. He also counted various steps being taken during the next financial year for the benefit of farmers and agriculture sector in the province.

Published in Dawn, June 26th, 2019