Daily Times

The Balochistan government has initiated a program to provide wheat seeds for the cultivation of rabi crop to around 100,000 farmers in the province. The Balochistan government has released Rs 2.20 billion for the provision of wheat seeds free of cost to the farmers of the flood-affected areas, Minister for Agriculture Mir Asadullah Baloch said on Monday. The government has procured around 381,000 bags of 50 kilogram wheat to ensure free of cost distribution of seeds for current season, Asad Baloch said. The district administration and agriculture department would ensure transparent distribution of seeds to the deserving farmers. He said that all necessary facilities will be provided to wheat growers to expand its production to make the province self sufficient. The initiative is taken to eliminate the wheat shortage after the recent floods. For transparency in the distribution of wheat seeds, the chief minister’s inspection team has been entrusted to monitor the program. It has also an allocation of Rs 15 billion to provide fertilizers, seeds and agri equipment to farmers affected by the flood on subsidised rates as the province was hit by worst natural calamity in the history, said the minister. He said the government had also approved a summary to provide 400,000 bulldozer’s hours to the farmers to bear the losses and already awarded 100,000 bulldozer’s hours to the farmers. “The flash floods have washed away embankments on 5,000,000 acres land which would require 1,000,000 bulldozers hours and 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 hours of trackers for rebuilding the mound and flatting the land.”