KARACHI, Feb 11: Tehrik-i-Istiqlal chief Rehmat Khan Wardag has call for distributing all state lands among the farmers cultivating them, saying this would help boost agricultural production and ultimately make the country self- sufficient in this sector.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, he also demanded that the small land-owners having less than 25 acres should be provided fertilizer, seed and pesticide at reasonable prices on credit basis. The loan amount, he added, be recovered from the earning of their crops without charging a mark-up.

Mr Wardag proposed that the Pakistani expatriates who had been remitting foreign exchange, collective worth of which ran into billions of dollars, be offered a special package for investment in the country and the government should also attach solid guarantee to their investment.

Such a package, he added, would help generate massive employment opportunities, besides strengthening the economy. Mr Wardag appreciated President Musharraf's policies which, he said, had streamlined the economy on sound footings and pushed the stock exchange index up to the 7,000 points.

He was of the view that the ongoing sugar crisis was the outcome of the late payment to the growers of sugarcane last year due to which they could not cultivate the crop this year. Fixing of prices and timely buying/payment of every crop should be ensured, he said.