Staff Reporter Peshawar
Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan has termed the progress made so far on the ongoing initiatives under Agriculture Transformation Plan (ATP) as satisfactory and directed the authorities concerned to ensure launching of Kisan Card under Digital Subsidy Mechanism within the next two months.
He said that Agriculture Transformation Plan would prove to be a revolutionary step towards development of agriculture sector adding that provincial government is going all out to achieve the goals set under the plan in line with the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“Sustainable Development of agriculture sector, facilitating the farmers and food security were amongst priority areas of provincial government; all the available resources are being utilized for the purpose under well devised strategy”, he added.
He was chairing a meeting held here the other day to review progress so far made on Agriculture Transformation Plan.
Briefing about the latest progress made on the various interventions under the plan, the forum was informed that under the intervention for quality seed dissemination amongst farmers, procurement of seed was in progress.
Initially 10,000 to 12,000 metric ton wheat seed would be procured and provided to farmers.
Highlighting the proactive approach of the provincial government in agriculture sector, it was informed that Tele-Farming and e-Agriculture system of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for ICT based extension services were already operational whereas Model Farm Services Centres have been established across the province.
Farmers are being facilitated through one Window operation facility in the aforesaid Model Farm Services Centres whereas Farmer Tele Facilitation Centre (call centre) has been setup under Tele-farming and e-Agriculture system.
Besides web portal, mobile application (agriculture extension), Management Information System (MIS) and Agri-Info (SMS) service are the important features of the system.
They informed that a pilot based system of ICT based extension services has been launched in Swabi in collaboration with private partner and same model would be upscaled on soil fertility based extension services to other districts.
Similarly, the participants were apprised that under the Digital Subsidy Mechanism, preparations were under process for launching Kisan Card adding that under KP Irrigated agriculture project, in the first phase 150 moisture meters would be installed.
