Daily Times

The federal government has announced a special relief package of Rs125 billion for labourers – Rs50 billion for SMEs and Rs75 billion for daily or unemployed laborers who have lost jobs because of coronavirus pandemic. Under the package the government would pay bills of power for SMEs for three months and through Ehsaas Assistance Programme, Rs12,000 per family is being given to another four million to six million people.

It has happened in the past that manufacturing, importing and exporting companies get subsidies while their real benefits never trickle down to the consumers or the people of Pakistan

SMEs and unemployed wage earners deserve assistance. It is a revolutionary step taken by the present government to support the SMEs. The country’s supply against the demand for electricity has been facing growing shortages. Loadshedding and power blackouts have become severe in Pakistan. Therefore, electricity in Pakistan is always available at high cost, especially for the small business community and commercial purposes. Besides that, every household has also been affected due to short generation of power. It is therefore the SME-related and business communities cannot afford electricity for business purpose. It is the reason several factory owners either closed their factories or shifted to other countries. Some businessmen purchase the power at high rate from the government, later the products to the consumers are sold out at high prices in the market because they get the electricity costly and the price of the product get rise resulted in decreases the purchasing power of the consumer. On the opposite side frequent loadshedding across the country which has disturbed to manufacturing of the products creating imbalance in supply and demand issues caused price increase of the products. After the outbreak of COVID-19, the government enforced lockdown in the country where all shops, markets, mall centers and factories remained closed due to which electricity came in saving. As now the government has rightly decided to give Rs50 billion of package for the SMEs in which the government itself will pay the three months of power bill. It is now the responsibility of the business community; the prices on products should not to be elevated in the market when they start to get the benefit through package. It can create more problems if one side the SMEs or business community get electricity through government package from the government, but its benefit does not pass over to the consumer. The government must make the agreement if they get power through the package, later its benefit should also pass to the consumer. It is also the responsibility of the government share the study with nation that if three months electricity payment is paid to the SMEs how much the consumer would get the benefit against it.

It has happened in the past that manufacturing, importing and exporting companies get the subsidies while their real benefits never trickle down to the consumers or the people of Pakistan. In the past three fertilizer schemes as 2015-16, 2017-18 and 2018-19 were launched to provide the fertilizers at lower cost to the farmers. The present government started the schemes in the way the more benefit took the fertilizer manufacturers or the importers but common farmers received very nominal benefit from the fertilizer subsidy schemes.

Whenever the subsidies on wheat by the previous governments have been offered, only wealthy wheat exporters or flour mill owners made the undue profits. No subsidy schemes on wheat growing farmers were directly offered by the government. Surprisingly wheat support price remained stagnant for many years, however, the prices of inputs had been increasing but no government bothered to increase the support price of wheat beyond Rs1,300 per 40kg since 2013. Now the present government has fixed support price at Rs1,400 per 40kg. Farmers are demanding an increase in the support price, but not one even a deputy commissioner has bothered to listen them.

The same issue has been observed in the sugarcane. Only the subsidy was provided on sugar export but no direct subsidies were passed on to the growers for producing more sugarcane. Farmers have been compelled to destroy their sugarcane crop instead of selling it to the millers. They sold sugarcane to the sugar mills but their dues are not cleared for years. But our governments always filled the lust of the rich sugar tycoons. If any subsidy is announced, it is for the sugar mill owners or the sugar exporters but not for the agriculture growers.

Due to the pandemic, the world can face many challenges in the shape of the shortage of food. Pakistan being an agriculturist country has great potential and also has the best canal system and it may provide the food alone for entire people of Pakistan itself. It is also an indisputable fact that Pakistan’s farmers are the foremost deprived ones. They get no due price on their products after they sell in the market. The government’s attitude with the farmers is usually discouraging. Farmers should be provided machinery, tractors, fertilizers, and electricity for tube-well on subsidized rates. Besides this, they should need to be offered an honest support price especially on wheat, sugarcane and cotton. If the government does not patronage the farmers and failed in crafting robust agriculture financing plans and monetary support, the country can face food shortage in the future. We should always not forget that the World Food Programme has recently warned the world that the food crisis can create instability and further poverty across the world after the outbreak of COVID-19.

SMEs and unemployed wage earners deserve assistance. They need to be given more but one sector which is agriculture or the farmer community has always been neglected by our governments. A large number of the people got unemployed due to lockdown who were working in the agriculture sector as daily wage earners. Who would support them? Through this scheme farmers may be included in paying them a minimum tube-well power bill for three months. Those daily wagers were engaged in agriculture growing and became unemployed should be given monetary assistance through Ehsaas Assistance Program. The crops as cotton and variety of other vegetables are at the corner to be sown across the country, farmer communities also need support and assistance of the government so as to grow the more food for the country.

The writer is a DSS student at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad