Farmers' criteria to qualify for diesel subsidy set

---

FE Report
The government has set criteria for farmers to qualify for cash subsidy on diesel to be disbursed from April 20 to May 15.
According to the criteria, marginal and poor farmers having 2.5 acres or less than that portion of boro land will be eligible for getting the cash subsidy on diesel, official sources said.
'Farmers growing rice on the same portion of land, taken on lease, will also qualify for subsidy,' said an agriculture ministry official.
The criteria, set by the agriculture ministry after consultation with the finance ministry, have been fixed in such a way that only marginal and poor farmers would be eligible for getting the diesel subsidy.
Farmers having more than 2.5 acres of land are not poor, added the official.
The official could not give the probable figure of such poor and marginal farmers, who would be provided with cash subsidy on diesel, as the ministry was still preparing the list.
'The list of farmers will be completed by April 17,' he said adding that the Department of Agriculture Extension will prepare it after examining reports by upazila and district committees.
The caretaker government has earmarked Tk 7.5 billion (750 crore) in diesel subsidy in the current fiscal budget for the first time in the country's history.
It is a major budgetary pledge as millions of farmers depend on diesel-fired pumps during dry season to grow boro, the country's main rice crop that accounts for nearly 50 per cent of the country's annual rice production.
Implementation of the budgetary pledge becomes more urgent in the backdrop of two consecutive floods during the last July-August period and the devastating cyclone Sidr that struck in November last causing loss of rice worth US$ 600 million.
With the global rice prices soaring, the farmers are expecting a bumper boro harvest in the current season as a record 98 per cent of the total targeted land areas have been brought under boro cultivation.
The Department of Agriculture Extension (DAE) said boro crop has been planted on nearly 4.40 million hectares of land out of the government-targeted 45 million hectares this season.
It will also help achieve the output target of 17.5 million tonnes of rice this season, higher by some 2.5 million tonnes over that of last season.
Farmers across the country have spontaneously planted crops this season in the wake of the sky-rocketing prices of foodgrains in the markets. Prices of the country's staple food rice alone doubled over the last twelve months.
Last season about 4.3 million hectares of land came under the boro plantation with diesel-run pumps covering almost 77 per cent of the country's irrigation.