KARACHI:The provincial cabinet of Sindh Thursday allowed the Sindh Excise and Taxation department to rationalize the registration and renewal fees of electric vehicles so that they could easily be registered in the province.
Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah shared the details of cabinet meeting with the media persons in a press conference at CM House.
He was flanked by provincial ministers Saeed Ghani, Nasir Shah, Advisor Law Murtaza Wahab and Secretary Information Rasheed Solangi.
The Chief Minister said that the provincial cabinet, in order to incentivize the growers and to encourage them to grow more wheat so that Sindh could be self-sufficient in the crop, has decided to fix the support price of wheat at Rs 2200 per 40 kilograms for season 2021-22.
The provincial cabinet after thorough discussion and deliberations approved an amendment in Section 2(h) of Sugar Factories Control Act, 1950 under which “the crushing season shall be commenced from November 1 to 30” for which the provincial government would issue specific notification.
It may be noted that the crushing season starts from October 1 on which, due to change in climate, sugarcane crops does not get ready for harvesting. Therefore, an amendment has been made in the law and referred the draft amended bill to the assembly.
The provincial cabinet approved a federal government program to offer subsidies to the farmers on phosphate fertilizer during the Rabi Crop 2021-22 on the 50:50 basis.
The federal government has approved that the ratio of subsidy would be 50:50 by federal and provincial governments. Sindh has 21.6 percent share in the national population, therefore its share in the subsidy would be 5.6 billion. If the outreach comes to 60 percent its share would be 3.3 percent and it would have to give its share of Rs 1.65 billion and the remaining Rs 1.65 billion to be borne by the federal government.
Provincial Advisor on Agriculture Manzoor wassan told the cabinet that during current season 2021-22, the rate of DAP is about Rs 8,500 per bag as compared to Rs 3,800 during 2020-21.
The subsidy would be given to small growers of one to 16 acres of land. The provincial cabinet approved the subsidy of Rs1.65 billion as its 50 percent share.
The chief minister told the media that the cabinet had directed the irrigation department to surrender the land which was not required to it for any essential/operational purpose.
Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the Irrigation department has surrendered 48 acres along the embankments of Rice Canal in Larkana city.
He added that with passage of time 19 colonies with 1500 houses and more than 4000 population have emerged along the rice canal embankments.
The CM Sindh said that the Irrigation department has surrendered its 48 acre land which has been allotted to Katchiabadies to regularize the colonies as per its policy framework.
He added that a similar exercise was conducted in other districts and cities of the province so that human settlements could be protected from being displaced.
The federal government has recently introduced a program, Targeted Commodity subsidy program/Ehsaas Raashan Madad’ with proposed coverage of the program encompassing all the province, the chief minister said and added the target population of the program were the low income families living below the poverty line.
Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the total cost of the program was said to be Rs 180 billion in which the federal government’s share would be 35 percent or only Rs42 billion and the provinces would have to share 65 percent or Rs78 billion. He added that the share of the Sindh government would be 17.67 billion (22.65 percent of all provinces).
The cabinet discussed the matter and learnt that the beneficiary would have to register himself through an Android mobile phone to get subsidies on flour, sugar, oil and pulses.