Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif has approved a wheat support subsidy of 5,000 rupees per acre for 600,000 farmers under the ‘Kissan Card’ initiative.
Farmers who are not currently registered under the Kissan Card program will also be eligible to receive the same per-acre subsidy.
Chairing a special meeting, the Chief Minister announced that billions of rupees in additional subsidies will be allocated for the upcoming crop season.
She emphasized the government’s continued commitment to supporting farmers and strengthening the agricultural sector.
In a recent meeting, it was shared that farmers have already spent 36 billion rupees using the Kissan Card facility to buy agricultural supplies.
Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif also looked into the progress of the plan to convert agricultural tube wells to solar energy. She repeated her government’s goal of modernizing Punjab’s agriculture with sustainable and farmer-friendly projects.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of Kisan Ittehad, Khalid Hussain Bath, warned that farmers would go on a hunger strike in Islamabad if the government doesn’t fix the wheat price.
Speaking at a press conference in Islamabad, Khalid Hussain Bath said that since the recent announcement by Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz, wheat prices have fallen by another 400 rupees per 40 kg.
He said farmers are being told that wheat will not be bought directly by the government, but instead through a third party. He questioned how farmers in Punjab are supposed to understand a European-style system of procurement. He added that farmers don’t even know how to use storage systems.
He requested the Chief Minister of Punjab to stop making decisions based only on the advice of bureaucrats. He asked her to listen to the farmers and show them mercy. He said the storage system would only create a new wave of corruption.
