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LAHORE, Jul 24 (APP):Provincial Minister for Agriculture & Livestock Syed Ashiq Hussain Kirmani presided over a meeting at Agriculture House, Lahore in which progress on the initiatives, approved by Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif for the Agriculture Department, were reviewed.
During the meeting, Minister Kirmani was told that so far, more than 327,000 farmers had submitted online applications for Chief Minister’s Punjab Kissan Card and after scrutiny, more than 130,000 applications had been sent to the Bank of Punjab for approval. The process of registration of dealers of fertiliser, seed and pesticides companies was also going on. So far, 3,000 dealers have registered by themselves, he added.
He directed that the Kissan Card Project’s timeline should be followed with letter and spirit and the number of requests received from farmers should be monitored on daily basis.
The minister inquired about the helpline status and directed all the employees on duty at the call center of agriculture department about their responsibilities that the farmers who contacted on helpline, should be informed about the reasons for the rejection of their applications He was told that more than 500 applications had been received so far for the Chief Minister Green Tractor Scheme and four major tractor manufacturing companies have been contacted in this regard.
He issued orders to make a live portal for the one year recruitment process of 1,000 agricultural graduates. The minister was also briefed that 1,000 in the first phase and 1,000 in the second phase agricultural graduates would be recruited under internship programme. He was also briefed that 4,000 super-seeders will be distributed among the farmers.
Secretary Agriculture Punjab Iftikhar Ali Sahoo said that the preparation of 1,000 super seeders is in final stages and their distribution will be done soon. He said that the use of super seeders will help in the smog control.
Special Secretary Agriculture Punjab Sheshanshah Faisal Azeem, Additional Secretary Agriculture Planning Captain (retd) Waqas Rashid, Consultant Agriculture Department Muhammad Anjum Ali, Director General Agriculture Extension Chaudhry Abdul Hameed, DG Agriculture Water Management, Punjab Malik Muhammad Akram, and Director General Agricultural Information Punjab Naveed Asmat Kahloon and other senior officers participated.