ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari has slammed the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) regime over the devastation of agriculture sector, saying it is shameful that an agrarian country has been compelled to import cotton, sugar and wheat.
According to the statement issued from Bilawal House’s Media Cell on Friday, the chairman said that the simultaneous import of wheat, sugar and cotton is an evidence of the ineptitude of the federal government and marks a dark day in the history of the country.
“Imran Khan has brought us to the verge of collapse. If Imran Khan does not change his anti-agriculture policies, then farmers would be on the front in our protests against the government,” he warned.
Bilawal pointed out that cotton production in Pakistan has fallen by 34 per cent to its lowest level in 30 years. Pakistan’s famed textile industry too is on the verge of collapse because of the cotton crisis.
He said that selected Prime Minister Imran Khan had imposed an agricultural emergency with a budget of Rs65 billion, which was not implemented anywhere. Cotton, chili, tomato, onion, rice, sugarcane and other crops were affected during rains but the government did not offer any incentive or compensation to the farmers, he stated.
The chairman further said that while farmers are struggling to repay their agricultural loans and fertilizer prices are skyrocketing, Imran Khan mocks farmers by claiming that everything is fine. The inept agricultural policies of the PTI government led to tomato farmers dumping their crop for nothing and yet the prime minister remained unconcerned, he added.
Bilawal said that when PPP took over the federal government, wheat was being procured from abroad but within a year Pakistan became a wheat exporting country. However, the PTI regime, instead of compensating farmers at Rs2,000 per 40 kilograms of wheat, decided to import substandard wheat at Rs2,750 per 40 kilograms.
“The history would not be kind to the prime minister. It would be written that as farmers were protesting against [Indian Prime Minister Narendra] Modi in New Delhi, farmers in Lahore were protesting against Pakistan’s Modi, Imran Khan,” he said.
“Imran Khan’s politicised police in Lahore martyred a farmer during their violent and highhanded handling of the peaceful and constitutional farmers’ movement.”
“If electricity could be subsidised for industries, then why not for the agriculture sector,” the PPP chairman questioned and demanded that urgent steps be taken to provide relief to the agriculture sector or else a new crisis would soon plague the country.
