Islamabad
General (Federal) Businessmen Panel and former chairman FPCCI’s standing committee on Agriculture, Ahmad Jawad has said that the government has adversely neglected the agriculture sector which is the backbone of the country economy in the federal.
In a statement issued here on Saturday, he said the budget lacks any initiative for development of agriculture sector and a minute amount of Rs10 billion only was allocated to deal with locust swarm.
The target of 2.8% for agriculture development in the fiscal year of 2020-21 was also on low side in an unusual time, he added. Jawad said in the light of Pandemic where we witnessed a sharp decline in services and industrial sector, “in this crises agriculture would be a only hope to uplift the dwindling economy and we expect that government put extra measures for the agriculture in the budget and set a target of at least 3.5 % but utter disappointment may visibly seen after listening the speech”.
Similarly, a stagnate exports target again set in the budget speech which shows no yielded efforts may be seen to increase exports despite government started a new slogan “look towards Africa” ; he said.
SG BMP said that the budget contains no facilitation measures to enhance horticulture exports which could play a pivotal role in country exports.
He said that government failed to allocate greater amount for Credit Guarantee Scheme for Small Farmers, Crop Loan Insurance Scheme and Livestock Insurance Scheme.
“It was an irony that almost peanuts had been sanctioned for agriculture in the federal budget despite the fact that hardworking farmers made this sector one of the top performers last year”, he stated. However, Jawad appreciated that government didn’t impose new taxes on masses and allocated budget of Rs 118 billion on CPEC projects including to reduce the tax about 1% on hotel industry for the period of six months.To curtail smuggling, reduce regulatory duty on clothing, sanitary products etc also an appreciated proposal including revised custom duty tariffs with a suggested tariff of zero percent on different 20,000 products.
Jawad also said to amend tax section of 73 in the budget would enhance the behaviour for registered tax payers in businesses was a appreciated step, but didn’t witnessed the measures how to overcome fudging issues in the monthly GST returns by the different companies.—INP
