HYDERABAD, Oct 14: The adviser to the Sindh chief minister on food and agriculture, Mir Murtaza Jatoi, has said that the government will provide drip system and laser land-levellers to farmers at subsidised rates.

He said the federal government would contribute 80 per cent of the cost whereas the farmers would contribute 20 per cent. He was speaking as a chief guest at a function held at the office of the director general of the agriculture extension department on Friday for distributing tractors, wheat threshers and wheat seeds drill.

He said the main objective of this exercise was to increase not only the per acre yield of crops but also to bring more land under cultivation.

He said that this would also save precious irrigation water.

About 17 growers were given these items who had made considerable contribution in the “grow more wheat campaign”.

The adviser said that the Sindh government would provide more incentives to those farmers who were able to increase per hectare yield of wheat.

He said it was heartening to note that the last year Sindh produced 25.65 lac metric tons of wheat against the given target of 22.87 lac metric tons despite a shortage of water and inclement weather.

He said Sindh surpassed Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan in the per hectare yield of wheat.

He commended the federal government for providing incentives to growers by awarding them tractors and other machinery.

He gave away keys of tractors to Syed Nadeem Shah of the Hyderabad district and Ali Nawaz Qazi of the Larkana district.

Waheed Nizamani, Sharifuddin Shah and Hajan Shah were given wheat threshers and 12 others growers were given wheat seed drill.

The director-general of the agriculture extension, Mr Naeem Korejo, Sindh Abadgar Board president Abdul Majeed Nizamani, the president of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture and Qamaruzzaman Shah also spoke on the occasion.

Syed Qamaruzzaman Shah expressed concern over closure of all the Kotri barrage canals in the wee hours of Friday without any prior notice.

He complained that all standing crops would be seriously affected.

He said the sugar mill owners were not prepared to start the crushing season as a result the standing crop of sugarcane would be destroyed.

Mr Jatoi assured that he would take up the matter at the cabinet meeting.

He regretted that the irrigation department was not consulting the agriculture department on closure of canals.

He said he would request the Sindh chief minister to direct the sugar mills to start the crushing season latest by November 1.

DONATION: A rice mill-owner from Matli, Seth Daryano Mal, has appealed to Sindhi Hindus to light up high liberally in president’s relief fund for providing succour to victims of the earthquake.

Speaking at a news conference at the press club here on Friday, he announced a personal donation of Rs100,000 cash towards to the president’s relief fund.

He said that he had already despatched rice for the victims of natural calamity.

He said nothing could be done for those unfortunate people who had died in the natural calamity but it was possible to rehabilitate the injured and homeless through a massive national effort.

He said the president, the prime minister, the provincial governments, the people of Pakistan and even the international community were doing everything possible to ameliorate sufferings of the quake victims.

He said the rehabilitation of the affected people was a gigantic task and, therefore, gigantic efforts were needed for this purpose.

LUMHS: The Liaquat University of Medical and Health Sciences Jamshoro has despatched a team of ten specialists doctors to earthquake-affected areas to provide medical treatment to injured persons.

The team includes, seven doctors, including professors, assistant professors and registrars and three technicians.