Islamabad: Prime Minister Imran Khan met with a delegation of farmers from Southern Punjab on Thursday.
The PM underlined the importance of solving the problems of genuine farmers. He said,” Immediate steps in collaboration with irrigation dept. of Punjab should be taken to stop pilferage of water in the canals.”
In a series of tweets, the premier emphasised the decrease of middlemen’s role enabling the farmers to get a good price of their products.
PM further directed the authorities concerned to invoke relevant laws to deal with cartelisation and to shun hoarding practices.
Earlier the Prime Minister was briefed that there is a 28% shortage of water in reservoirs, which will affect the Rabi crop.
He said that the water shortage can be met by stopping the pilferage of water in the canals.
The Premier also stated that Pakistan is blessed with a rich natural resource base for agriculture.
However, despite having one of the world-best alluvial soils, diversified weather conditions, the best irrigation system, and assiduous farmers, we could not fully harness the potential of our agriculture sector mainly because of misplaced priorities of the previous governments.
PM @ImranKhanPTI met with a delegation of farmers from Southern Punjab.
The PM underlined the importance of solving problems of genuine farmers. He said,” Immediate steps in collaboration with irrigation dept of Punjab should be taken to stop pilferage of water in the canals.” pic.twitter.com/pPAQlx2dQJ
— Prime Minister’s Office, Pakistan (@PakPMO) November 11, 2021
Kisan Portal for farmers
Previously PM Imran Khan launched the Kisan Portal which is a special category added to the Pakistan Citizen Portal considering it will give a voice to the small farmers to report the problems faced by them.
During the ceremony, the Pm stated that “The farmer used to work hard and take his sugarcane to sugar mills. He would be defeated from both sides — first they (sugar mills) made farmers wait in long lines. When I travelled in winter, trucks used to be queued outside sugar mills and they would get low prices.”