ISLAMABAD, June 25: Finance Minister Syed Naveed Qamar said on Wednesday that the finance ministry had asked the Zarai Taraqqiati Bank Ltd (ZTBL) to withhold its action against those farmers who had defaulted on small farm credits.

In a meeting with a group of parliamentarians here, the minister said that he had also directed the ZTBL management to make sure that applications of farmers for loans got processed within a week.

Farmers have been complaining about the long delays they face in getting small credits through the field officers of the bank.

Mr Qamar said the bank management had assured him that the farmers were being facilitated and they could now file applications for loans in the designated branches.

The bank had started the sale or auction of properties of a large number of small farmers, who were unable to pay the micro-credits they had taken from the bank.

The ZTBL action had drawn severe criticism from farmers and lawmakers at a time when the bank adopted a soft approach towards writing off loans to industrialists.

The finance minister said the government was also trying to make sure that the subsidy it had announced on fertilisers in the budget 2008-09 was reflected in the price of the commodity.

He said the sales tax and customs duty had now been withdrawn on the import of tractors and farm implements in order to help the country’s agriculture sector to move towards more mechanisation.

Mr Qamar said that the wheat support price for the next season will be fixed in September in order to avoid the mess created by delay in announcement of the procurement price by the caretaker government this year.