RAWALPINDI – Punjab Agriculture Minister Malik Nauman on Monday said that government would provide Rs15 billion interest-free loans to farmers during current financial year. While attending a report launch, he said the credit available to these small farmers was mainly from informal sources, which was high in mark-up and resulted in escalating total cost of production.
He said that small farmers represent a major portion of farming households in province and had little access to formal affordable finance during past. The ultimate aim of the agriculture department is to facilitate the farmers through the usage of mobile wallets. The minister said there are a total of 55,000 active mobile wallet accounts, which eventually shows the success rate of this scheme.
The government allocated budget of Rs93 billion for agriculture sector as compared to Rs81.30 billion in 2017-18. The event was attended by Dr Yusuf Zafar, Chairman PARC, Dr John Steen, Project Coordinator, The University of Queensland Australia and other officials.