PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has decided to extend the Prime Minister Backyard Poultry Programme to extend erstwhile Fata to alleviate poverty and generate employment opportunities for poor tribesmen.
In the first phase, the programme was being extended to three tribal districts including Khyber, Bajaur and Kurram and later would be extended to South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Mohmand and Orakzai tribal districts.
Officials in KP Agriculture and Livestock Department told APP on Wednesday that this pro-poor initiative was a part of Prime Minister National Agriculture Emergency Programme under which chicken units package i.e ‘five female and one male’ would be distributed among each deserving family. Under this programme around one million poultry birds would be distributed among poor families on subsidized rates during the next four years in KP including merged areas.
The applicant was only required to pay Rs1050 for each unit of poultry and approximately 250,000 numbers of units would be distributed amongst deserving families each year. The merged areas of erstwhile Fata have enormous potential for poultry farming and the livestock department would extend full technical support to farmers and livestock growers.
PC-I of two gigantic projects worth Rs 12 billion was prepared to strengthen agriculture and livestock services besides enhancing the productivity of different crops in the province. “The PC-I of these projects have been sent to the concerned forum for approval and practical work on it would soon commence,” he explained.
“The conversion of agriculture and cultivable lands into housing societies is a big challenge and the department has taken a principal decision to make necessary legislation for the protection of agriculture lands from unlawful housing societies,” the official maintained.
Out of 20.646 million acres land of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, around 4.627 million acres are under- cultivation while 16.18 million is uncultivable. To bring this vast unproductive land under agriculture net, PC-1 of 15 new projects were prepared for 2019-20 under which 14 projects including 11 PSDP projects worth Rs 44 billion approved and funds for 14 projects were released by the Government.
These projects would mainly focus on improvement in watercourses, protection of water resources in rainy areas, construction of small and medium dams, production of wheat, rice, oil besides fattening of calves of buffaloes, cows and strengthening of agriculture and livestock services in KP including merged areas.
The Federal and KP Governments have also joined hands to promote agriculture, fisheries and livestock services in merged areas to alleviate poverty and generate employment opportunities for tribal people.
To achieve these objectives, seven agriculture and livestock projects worth Rs 4.20 million focusing on increasing of meat and milk production, water conservation, livestock and dairy services have been approved for merged areas.
Likewise, the Government has developed a multifaceted Accelerated Implementation Programme (AIP) for merged areas during 2019-20 under which different agriculture programmes worth Rs 1970 million has been prepared primarily focusing on enhancement of crops’ productivity, producing of virus-free seeds, solarization of tube-wells and building of small dams.
