ISLAMABAD - As the government is all set to celebrate second Farmers Day tiled ‘Salam Kissan, Sarsabz Pakistan, the Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd (ZTBL) has successfully distributed agriculture machinery worth Rs50 billion among farmers in the year 2020. In a statement issued here, ZTBL said that it has disbursed loan for tractors to the tune of Rs1,350 enabling small farmers across the country to avail 1,655 tractors. Similarly, ZTBL which is Pakistan’s premium agriculture financing bank has disbursed Rs72.8 million to finance 551 tube wells so that smaller farmers can irrigate their agriculture land in arid areas. To financially strengthen small farmers, Rs4.7 billion was distributed in the year 2020 among farmers in four provinces including Azad Jammu and Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan. “The primary and foremost objective of ZTBL is to facilitate small farmers. A happy farmer is the synonym of a happy society and this is what we are aimed at,” President/CEO ZTBL Muhammad Shahbaz Jameel said. He told new agriculture technology will be soon introduced so that our farmers could get access to the newest agriculture machinery that will ultimately result in big productions. ZTBL has successfully implemented the mark-up subsidy scheme announced by Prime Minister Imran Khan in the wake of COVID-19 so that small farmer having landholding less than 12.5 acres are offered subsidized mark-up. Under this initiative, 267,673 farmers’ have benefited with extended markup subsidy of approximately Rs1.2 billion.

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