Removing Impediments to Growth TOTAL NUMBER IN THE PSDP 1219 Projects TOTAL PSDP SIZE Rs 727 Billion The five major project sectors are highlighted in Table 17.2. Water Resource sector is perhaps the most vivid example of‘spreading thin’. The number of on-going schemes in 74 and 58 more new schemes will be added in 2022-23. These new projects will pre-empt almost 22 percent of the sectoral allocation. Consequently, despite a throw forward of Rs 1933 billion, the funds available for on-going projects are only Rs 143 billion. Given the acute scarcity of development funds, the time has come for a moratorium on the preparation, approval and financing of new projects for at least the next three years. Maximum priority must be given to early completion of mature on-going projects so as to generate the largest development impact. 17.3 Back to Agriculture The growth rate of agriculture has also been steadily declining. It attained a peak of 5.4 percent in the decade of the 80s, especially after the commissioning of the Tarbela Dam. Thereafter, it fell to 4.4 percent in the 90s, 3.2 percent from 2000 to 2010 and to only 2.8 percent from 2010 to 2022. An interesting historical fact is that the economy of Pakistan between 1950-51 and 2021-22 achieved a growth rate of above 7 percent in twelve out of the 51 years. Eight of these years were years when the growth rate of the agriculture exceeded 6 percent due to bumper crops. This was transmitted to an over 10 percent growth in the manufacturing sector. The fundamental reason for the high growth impact of improved performance of agriculture is its strong linkages with other sectors. Almost 45 percent of the manufacturing sector is agro-based. Many service activities like wholesale and retail trade and transport are also linked to agriculture. Overall, almost 46 percent of the economy of Pakistan is directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture . The‘back to agriculture’ slogan must be supported with the following measures: i) Agriculture receives very low import tariff protection in Pakistan as compared to, for example, in India. The average agricultural tariff in India is 34 percent as compared to only 13 percent by Pakistan. It is truly incomprehensible that there is a zero-import duty on cotton, in the presence of a duty-drawback scheme for exporters of textiles. Barring basic food imports of pulses and wheat, the average import duty on agricul­tural imports must be increased to the average of 20 percent. ii) The procurement/ support policy is flawed. During the decade of the 90s there used to a price support policy for wheat, cotton and sugarcane. Thereafter, it was dropped 175