SAHIWAL: Hundreds of farmers from the Pakistan Kisan Ittehad (PKI) staged a rally in protest against the federal government for not implementing the Rs1.8tr Kisan Relief Package recently announced by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif.

The rally was held from Nagina Chowk to DC Chowk, Pakpattan, followed by a seminar.

PKI Punjab President Rizwan Iqbal said Pakistan’s economy was on the verge of collapse because agriculture had been destroyed by the policies of the present and previous governments. He said PM Sharif had committed to awarding Rs13.50 per unit of electricity to the farmers but till date no notification had been issued by the federal government.

He said it was committed in the package that the farmers would be awarded subsidies on fertiliser, pesticides and quality seed but nothing happened.

Mr Rizwan said the prices of DAP had gone down in the international market but even then,

the government was not offering the growers subsidy on it.

Haji Shafi Watto, the district office-bearer of the PKI, lamented that the federal government had spent billions of rupees on advertisements of the Kisan package in the media but gave not a single penny to the farmers. He said the package was a joke and it must be done away with.

The farmers threatened that if the PM Relief Package would not be implemented, the PKI would stage a sit-in at Islamabad in the first week of December.

While addressing the rally, many speakers dubbed the PM’s Kisan Package a fraud and urged the PM to fulfill his promises.

OBITUARY: Mian Mahmood Ahmed Khan, the former federal minister, senior parliamentarian of PML-N and caretaker of the Basi Sharif, Pakpattan, passed away.

He had contested the election in the 1990s and was made a federal minister by Mian Nawaz Sharif. However, after that he remained away from politics, keeping himself limited to being the caretaker.

He was considered an important figure among different Rajput clans present in Kamalia, Pakpattan and Okara.

Mian Mahmood was suffering from a protracted illness. He was recently shifted to a private hospital in Lahore for treatment.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2022