Balochistan government has approved the allocation of Rs 15 billion to provide fertilizers, seeds and agri equipment to farmers affected by flood on subsidies rates as the province were hit by worst natural calamity in the history. Balochistan Minister for Agriculture and Cooperative Mir Asadullah Baloch said the government has also approved a summary to provide 400,000 bulldozer’s hours to the farmers to bear the losses and already awarded 100,000 bulldozer’s hours to the farmers.
“The flash floods have washed away embankments on 5,000,000 acres land which would require 1,000,000 bulldozers hours and 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 hours of trackers for rebuilding the mound and flatting the land. Asadullah Baloch demanded the federal government and donor agencies to come forward and help the provincial government in rehabilitation of flood affectees as out of estimated Rs. 300 billion loss, the agriculture sector alone faced Rs. 150 billion loss.
“The volume of calamity is colossal and we do not have enough resources to fight it, compensate affected population, rehabilitation and restore the damaged infrastructure,” he added. Asad Baloch demanded the federal government to raise the fund for flood hit people in Balochistan as the estimated overall loss faced by the province stands around Rs. 300 billion.
He demanded the federal government to announce subsidy on electricity and gas bills, provision of free yields, acquittal of agricultural loan, provision of tractors on subsidize rates and provide bulldozer’s hours to the farmers to bear the losses. Giving details about the agricultural losses, he said that almost overall seasonal crops including tomato, chilli, onion, rice, cotton, apple and dates standing on over 200,000 acres land had been destroyed completely. He said the flood has badly affected the farmers, caused loss of over 500,000 livestock and destroyed their tube wells and solar panels.
