LAHORE: Punjab Agriculture Minister Syed Hussain Jehanian Gardezi announced the formal opening of the Kisan Card Scheme on Friday.

Speaking at a joint press conference along with Special Assistant to CM Firdous Ashiq Awan, he said the farmers would get subsidies worth billions of rupees directly through the Kisan Card in a transparent manner as the amount would be transferred to their accounts. He said the card would increase digital literacy of the farmers whereas they would also be able to buy fertilizer, seeds and pesticides on time by availing the subsidy directly through the ATMs.

Mr Gardezi informed the media that the farmers could get the subsidy even from farm input dealers as more than 30,000 points had been set up for the purpose across the province.

The minister said implementation of the Agriculture Transformation Plan under the Prime Minister’s Agricultural Emergency Programme was in progress and schemes worth Rs300bn were being implemented for the farmers. A sum of Rs28.59bn would be allocated for watercourse improvement schemes to pave 10,000 watercourses.

He said 1,200 laser land levelers had been provided to the farmers through a subsidy scheme while subsidized modern agricultural machinery was also being provided to the farmers under the national wheat production increase plan.

Replying to a question, Mr Gardezi said the agriculture department was paying special attention to research and more than 147 new varieties of crops, including wheat, had been approved for general cultivation and DNA fingerprinting and variety registration had been made mandatory to save the seed from adulteration.

Under the Crop Insurance (Takaful) Programme, the farmers in 27 districts of Punjab were being provided with crop insurance facilities for cotton, paddy and wheat as well as insurance for climate change, natural calamities and locust damage.

At least 600,000 farmers have had insurance so far under the crop insurance scheme and the department had paid Rs3bn as premium to the insurance companies, he said.

The present government, he said, has provided interest-free loans worth Rs64bn to the farmers.

Talking to the media, Special Assistant to Chief Minister on Information Dr Firdous Ashiq said the Kisan Card would provide direct financial benefits to farmers in the shape of cash transfer besides encouraging them to grow more crops to feed the countrymen.

She said the farmers would be able to timely procure pesticides, seeds and other essential items by collecting subsidy amount directly from the ATM through Kisan Card. This would benefit the farmers’ community as a subsidy worth billions would be provided annually to one million farmers, she said.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2021