LAYYAH, March 20: The Punjab Agriculture Department has enhanced per hour rents and withdrawn a 100 per cent fuel subsidy it was providing to farmers to hire heavy machinery, including bulldozers and levellers, to flatten their agriculture lands in this under-developed district, Dawn learnt here on Thursday.
The department had been providing levellers and bulldozers to farmers on cheap rates along with free fuel since the inception of Thal Development Authority (TDA) in 1954 to uplift this district and bring it at par with other developed districts of the province.
However, the equipment’s rents were gradually enhanced from meagre charges to more recently Rs420 per hour for agricultural lands. However, the 100 per cent fuel subsidy has now completely been withdrawn through a notification issued by the secretary to the government of Punjab, agriculture department, bearing No. SOA (P) 1-28/2000 dated March 7, 2008.
The decision has been opposed by farmers, terming it detrimental to the development of this remote district of southern Punjab.With the establishment of the TDA, the department also established an Agro-Engineering Workshop here in 1954. Controlled by the engineering wing of the agriculture department, the workshop started providing levelling equipment to farmers at cheaper rates as an incentive to help them flatten more and more uncultivated lands on a large-scale.
Most of the farmers had migrated from other districts to cultivate the barren yet unpaved lands they had purchased from the TDA on a throwaway prices.
From 1954 to 1970, the department provided 100 per cent free of cost levelling equipment (bulldozers, excavators and levellers) along with fuel to attract more and more farmers. Thus, the farmers were able to get their lands levelled rapidly by paying exactly nothing for the equipment as well as the fuel. However, in 1970, the department started charging nominal charges (around Rs10 to Rs20 per hour) from farmers as rents of the machinery. These negligible charges remained in-force till 2000, however, the department continued providing free fuel to farmers. In 2000, rents of the levelling machinery were further enhanced up to Rs198 per hour with an annual increase of Rs50 per hour. However, no decision was made to cut fuel subsidy and the department continued providing free diesel to farmers. It is pertinent to mention here that 13.25 litre diesel is required to operate the leveller or bulldozer for one hour.
The department was charging Rs358 per hour with free diesel from borrowers till March 10, 2008. However, in wake of the above notification, not only the fuel subsidy has totally been withdrawn, rents of the machinery have been enhanced further.
According to the notification issued by a section officer of the planning wing on March 7, Komatsu, a D-50-70 brand leveller, would be rented out for agricultural lands at the rate of Rs420 per hour without diesel and for non-agricultural lands, Rs840 per hour without diesel would be charged.
Similarly, Caterpillar, another brand of levellers, will be rented out for agricultural lands at the rate of Rs385 per hour without diesel while Rs770 per hour without diesel would be charged for non-agricultural lands.
Farmers’ Association of Pakistan (FAP) district president Choudhry Samiullah told Dawn that the workshop’s machinery had already been booked up to 5,000 hours in advance and unit supervisor of the workshop was finding it hard to meet the congested booking schedule owing to a paucity of the equipment.
He said that 689,274 acres of land was available for cultivation throughout the district. He said that levelling of more lands would be required after the opening of Thal Flood Water Canal, being taken out from Aadhi Kot locality on Chashma-Jhelum Link Canal, by October or November this year and hence more equipment would be required to carry out the hectic yet gigantic job, especially in Choubara tehsil of this district.
The FAP district president urged the Punjab government to continue providing fuel subsidy to farmers for two reasons. First, he said, adulterated diesel purchased by borrowers from other than the government-operated outlets would harm the vehicles, eventually burdening the department, and for last, but not the least, compelling farmers to purchase diesel, whose prices are skyrocketing these days, would add to their miseries as they would have to pay over Rs1,000 per hour to hire the equipment to flatten their agricultural lands.
Ahmad Bakhsh Kaif, who is assistant agriculture engineer, told Dawn that booking ratio of the levelling equipment had declined since the issuance of this notification on March 7. However, he said that they had to implement the modified rates as well as the government’s policy.