Punjab Minister for Agriculture Ahmed Ali Aulkh has said that the government is giving priority to agriculture and is distributing 60,000 acres land on lease to the landless farmers, and priority will be given to agriculture graduates. "The government is also planning to start schemes for irrigation with a cost of Rs 7 billion," he added. He told a press conference in the Agriculture House on Friday that the government had allocated Rs 550 million for tunnel technology used in growing off-season vegetables. The government was also giving subsidy of Rs 560 million to farmers on agriculture equipment. He said the government had set aside Rs 1 billion in the budget for research in agriculture. "The government has increased subsidy on DAP fertilizers and the Agriculture Department has confiscated fake and expired pesticides and fertilizers worth 95.1 million in the past two months," he said. He said the government in the leadership of Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had empowered officials of Agriculture Department to take stern action against such people who are involved in heinous crime of spurious, expired and adulterated pesticides and fertilizers business. Officially unveiling the priorities of Punjab government for agriculture sector development first time, the minister said that the government was committed to food security in the country. He further said that the federal government would import 100 bulldozers for Punjab while Punjab government already has 355 bulldozers which will be used for levelling lands for agriculture purposes. He said that 60 bulldozers were out of order and the agriculture department had started to repair them as well. To increase wheat production, he said, a working group had been evolved and asked it to make a strategy to increase wheat production 25 percent every year. About cotton crops, he said the government would give good news to framers soon on Bt cotton. Copyright Business Recorder, 2008