India declines request on 'Kilimo Kwanza' tractor project

BabuK · 2013-03-01T17:08:19+00:00

The Indian government has withdrawn its support of the second phase of Kilimo Kwanza tractor project due to what has been described as limited government budget. The Tanzanian government put its request for another loan from the Indian government so that it could acquire 3,000 tractors to carry out the second phase of the tractor project. This was after completion of the first phase of the project worth $40m which saw 1,846 tractors supplied to the government through Suma-JKT as the implementing agency. In an exclusive interview with The Guardian yesterday the India High Commissioner to Tanzania, Debnath Shaw, said his government has withdrawn from the tractor loan programme because his government at home was short of extra funds after having spent much money to support Tanzanias water sector. Shaw also said that the amount used to support the water projects in Tanzania last year was about USD178.125m, which, he said, was equivalent to 16 percent of the total budget for Africa. As a single country we gave Tanzania a lot of money last year, allocating 16 percent of all loans disbursed to African continent thus we cannot support Kilimo Kwanza for now, he said. Speaking to The Guardian on Wednesday on behalf of the Counsellor for the High Commission of India to Tanzania, Kunal Roy, the High Commissions Publicity and Education Attaché, Abha Gosain, said his government Indian has no plans to issue loans for Tanzanias second phase tractor project. We have no plans to continue supporting the project after the first phase has elapsed, everything has been concluded, she said. Earlier, when reached for comments, Ministry of Agriculture, Food Security and Cooperatives acting director of farming equipment, Eng Lymo Mark, said the report on the first phase of the project was submitted by the Ministry of Home Affairs to the Indian High Commission it to assess whether the project has been successful prior to starting the second phase. The Ministry of Home Affairs presented the report to the Indian High Commission in December last year and applied for an additional 3,000 tractors to keep supporting the Kilimo Kwanza initiative, Eng Lymo had said. He added: During his visit in Tanzania, the Indian Prime Minister promised to support the agriculture sector assuring that his country would increase support to Tanzania so as to see the green revolution is achieved, said Lymo. When she inspected SUMA-JKT Kilimo Kwanza project, former Indian High Commissioner to Tanzania Hemalata Bhagirath, she said, that her country would bring both technical and material support to improve Tanzanias backbone sector and assured that increased production would pave the way for the countrys envisaged green revolution. We will bring technical and material support from India to assist farmers in Tanzania and we will also ensure availability of food, she had said. Bhagirath also noted that India would bring agricultural experts to provide training to farmers in Tanzania during which the latter would be equipped with best production methods with a view to improve productivity. We have plenty of agricultural experts, engineers and technicianssome of them will come to Tanzania and train the farmersgenerally, the initiative is intended to improve production and lives of the people, she had said. According to SUMA-JKT all the tractors brought in the first phase were sold out as farmers responded positively after the agency reduced the sale price. The bulk importer of Indian tractors was charging between 25m/- and 45m/- per farm-track tractor. However, at some point, the price was lowered to 16m/- and as a result the farmers rushed for the remaining units. President Jakaya Kikwete on Wednesday directed the management of National Services commercial wing (Suma-JKT) to ensure that the 42bn/- loaned to them for the purchase of the tractors and other farming equipment imported from India is repaid. The President issued the directives during a tour to the National Service headquarters in Dar es Salaam after being informed by Major General Raphael Muhuga that only 16bn/- of the sold equipment had been collected from the indebted persons since the project was incepted. He said failure by SumaJKT to collect the money from the farmers and co-operative unions which acquired the farming equipment in forms of loans will technically ruin the image of the agency and the project as well. SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN

Thread starter BabuK
Start date Mar 1, 2013

BabuK

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India declines request on 'Kilimo Kwanza' tractor project

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