LAHORE: Provincial Agriculture Minister Dr Farukh Javed has said that the ceiling rate of agriculture income tax should be enhanced from Rs 80,000 to Rs 400,000, equal to the traders’ community. He also confirmed that the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government in Punjab was working hard to address all the problems being faced by the progressive small farmers. He said that his government would try to end the current general sales tax (GST) of 7 percent on agriculture inputs to facilitate small farmers. The minister was delivering the concluding speech in the Punjab Assembly after completion of the two-day general discussion on agriculture and sugarcane farmers’ problems. He told the House that about 80 percent payments to the sugarcane farmers from the sugar mills owners had been paid. Dr Javed told the House that his government had already distributed 30,000 tractors to farmers on 50 percent subsidy and now it would provide other equipments being used in agriculture sector on the same rate while they would also be given leaser-leveller of total cost of Rs 450,000 on subsidy of Rs 350,000. The provincial minister said that the farmers had gotten food security in the crop of wheat and potato and now, arrangements to export potato from Okara region to Russia and other countries are being done. He also informed the legislators that Pakistan is close to India in the trade of some food items. He confirmed that the rates of diesel in Pakistan were less than 70 countries of the world and the government was giving subsidy of billions of rupees on the electricity of tube wells to the farmers. He said Pakistan was at 8th position in “Global Earth Warming” and at 250th position on the globe on the issue of the “Green House Gases” which was due to disturbing seasons and irregular production of crops. The Punjab Assembly session on Thursday started two hours and 40 minutes late to its scheduled time under the chair of Deputy Speaker Sher Ali Gorchani. During the question hour, provincial minister Tanveer Aslam answered queries about the housing and public health engineering department. Jamaat-e-Islami backed opposition member Dr Waseem Akhtar, while criticising the Punjab government for using allocated funds in the budget for different development projects like Cholistan and Qila Drawar projects and road construction schemes of Rs 700 million in Southern Punjab on the Metro Bus Service (MBS) project in Lahore, walked out from the House in protest. He also demanded to declare Bahawalpur as a separate province. Later, the House rejected two amendments of the opposition and adopted the Punjab Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (Amendment) Bill 2015 with majority. Later, the deputy speaker adjourned the session till Friday (today) at 9am.