The poultry experts have urged the federal and provincial governments to declare poultry a part of agriculture sector and poultry units producing food items be exempted from sales tax and withholding tax on their electricity bills forthwith, reports Daily Times of Pakistan.

This demand was raised along with a set of other recommendations at a national poultry conference organised by the Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA) at a local hotel on Thursday. The conference was attended by 20 PhDs in different fields of poultry and also addressed by PPA chairman, Khaleeque Arshad, Abdul Haye Metha and others PPA officers.

The experts said that the poultry industry has played a vital role in bridging the gap between supply and demand and animal proteins and in keeping the prices of beef and mutton during at reasonable levels during the last two decades.

As 73 per cent of poultry farms are located in the Punjab province, the provincial government should provide incentives in building plan fees, property tax, and local government tax and on establishment of poultry farms, the experts demanded.

The national conference informed that poultry farming is being treated at par with textile industry, Pharmaceutical and other being established with investment of billions of rupees, whereas even the most modern and well equipped poultry farm costs only two to three million rupees (PKR). Therefore, this trend needs to be rationalised.

The Daily Times article explains that, after the of Punjab Local Government Ordinance 2001, property tax on poultry sector was imposed and as per valuation table of extended area of Lahore the three categories residential, commercial and industrial have been classified for property tax whereas poultry is part of agriculture sector and is not covered under the above classified categories for purpose of levy of property tax, therefore it is not liable to be taxed under Urban Immovable Property Tax Act 1956 (UIPT Act) and liable to be withdraw from valuation table, the experts recommended. As abolish sales and while advocating to abolish sales tax and withdrawal of income tax the experts while giving reference of the relevant SRO quoted it as 'persons receiving payments from a company exclusively for the supply of agricultural produce (including fresh milk, live chicken bird and eggs) by any person engaged in poultry farming and by an industrial undertaking engaged in poultry processing which has not been subjected to any process other than that which is ordinarily performed to render such produce fit to be taken market'.

The export observed that there was a great need to decrease prices of poultry products and the best way was to lower its cost of production and in order to achieve this target the Punjab government should reduce licence fee to PKR 250 from PKR 20,000 and development charges for construction to be lowered to PKR 500 per acre instead of PKR 5,000 per kanal (1 kanal = 510 square metres).