Rabi Package: ECC okays Rs1000 subsidy on urea bag for farmers

ISLAMABAD: Finance advisor Abdul Hafeez Shaikh chaired on Thursday an Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) session giving nod to Rabi crop package by the Ministry of National Food Security and Research, ARY News reported.

Earlier the food security ministry had proposed to the ECC its chalked out agricultural relief package for Rabi season in order to increase wheat production by extending subsidies to wheat farmers.

The package by the name of Prime Minister Rabi Package is intended to pass over relief to farmers in the production cost of the wheat crop according to which per gunny bag of urea will cost Rs1000 less than usual.

Prime Minister Rabi Package is set to subsidize urea cost for farmers by Rs1000 per bag which will translate a decrease in overall production cost, encouraging farmers to grow more wheat crop.

The federal government is set to bear 70% of the subsidy while the relevant province will contribute 30%, which means against each bag, the federal government will pay Rs700 and the province will share Rs300 in the total cost.

According to the ECC meeting notification today, a mechanism to serve up the subsidy will be formulated by the board shortly.

READ: ECC constitutes eight-member committee to decide wheat support price

Pertinent to this, earlier on Oct 19 the ECC constituted an eight-member committee to thoroughly evaluate the proposal for the increase in the Minimum Support Price (MSP) of wheat for the 2020-21 crops.

The meeting chaired by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Shaikh announced that Syed Fakhar Imam, Dr. Hafeez Shaikh, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Dr. Waqar Masood, Nadeem Baber, Abdul Razzaq Dawood, Asad Umar and Khusroo Bakhtiar would be the members of the committee.

The committee would also prepare a proposal on subsidy on fertilizers, mainly DAP, which would be offered as a part of the package for the farmers so that their input cost is reasonable/reduced.