Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday launched the fourth phase of the Green Tractor Scheme.
She launched the scheme through a digital balloting process and opened the application portal for its fifth phase.
The Punjab government has announced plan to provide 19,500 tractors to farmers during the current fiscal year. The chief minister pressed a button to conduct the digital balloting. The first tractor under Phase IV going to Masood Khan, son of Lal Khan, from Attock.
According to a briefing, the provincial government will provide 10,000 tractors with 50 to 65 horsepower under Phase IV. The Punjab government is offering a subsidy of Rs750,000 per tractor. The Punjab government, under Phase V, will offer 9,500 high-powered tractors ranging from 75 to 125 horsepower with a subsidy of Rs1 million each.
The government has allocated Rs17.6 billion for the Green Tractor Scheme. It has already provided 24,000 tractors to farmers under the Green Tractor Scheme with a subsidy of Rs1 million per tractor, the briefing said.
Maryam congratulated the successful applicants and expressed good wishes for them. She also inspected tractors being offered under the scheme, including locally manufactured 90-horsepower and locally assembled 100-horsepower models.
Tractors to Farmers in Punjab:
The briefing highlighted the scale of the provincial government’s spending on agricultural mechanisation. It said the previous governments in 20 years had only provided 10,000 tractors to farmers. The statement claimed the provincial government during Nawaz Sharif’s two- and half-year tenure provided 35,000 tractors.
Similarly, Rs3 billion had been spent on agricultural mechanisation over two decades compared with Rs20 billion during the last two-and-a-half years.
Punjab has also witnessed, for the first time, local manufacturing of 90-horsepower tractors and assembly of 100-horsepower tractors, according to the statement.
More than 213,637 farmers applied for the Green Tractor Programme, of whom the authorities declared 128,757 as eligible for the balloting after verification through the Punjab Land Records Authority and Nadra.
The briefing said farmers owning five acres or more of agricultural land were eligible to apply. The government had fixed district-wise tractor quotas according to the proportion of cultivated land, with districts including Bhakkar, Jhang, Lodhran and Vehari having relatively higher shares.
The authorities have included five locally manufactured tractor models in the Punjab’s Green Tractor Scheme.
