LAHORE: The Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (Pildat) is hosting a two-day Pakistan-India legislators and public officials dialogue on sharing experiences on governance and democracy. The event began here on Tuesday.

Member of Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha (provincial assembly) Mangi Lal Garasiya and Punjab Vidhan Sabha`s Kuljit Singh Nagra from India joined their counterparts from the assemblies of Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to exchange views on agriculture, business and investment.

Both sides say an exchange of ideas on issues of mutual interest and concern is required for the two countries to resolve issues faced by the citizens.

Prof Jagrup Singh Sekhon of Amritsar Guru Nanak Universityhighlighted how land reforms, green revolution and the mechanisation of farming had greatly helped the agriculture sector in India.

Some of the challenges he spoke about were associated with land acquisition and a lack of availability of food grains, falling water table and the rising input costs in the Punjab region leading to an increase in poverty and the rising suicide rate.

Sharing the Pakistani perspective, agricultural economist Asif Khan said the major challenges here included a lack of enforcement of rules, adulteration and smuggling of food grain seeds, adulteration in pesticides, high electricity tariff, poor water pricing and land holdingissues.

In the discussion session, the participants raised questions about the disparity in the wages between men and women and more importantly how water disputes between both countries had affected thesector.

Some members raised concerns about how India and Pakistan had tried to cater to the growing population of their respective countries by resorting to artificial methods of cultivating crops which had led to the increase in major diseases in both countries. There was a consensus that both in Pakistan and India the number of those willing to join the agriculture sector had declined over the years as many wanted to join more profitable professions.

Members from the Indian delegation felt that both countries needed to come up with better ways to use the rainwater and unanimously agreed upon the need to increase the number of awareness campaigns.

Speaking on the subject of investment, Dr Hafiz A. Pasha, former adviser to PM on finance, said that due to terrorism and energy deficiency, business and investment in Pakistan had suffered overthe years. In future, the country would benefit from the China-Pak Economic Corridor and the crippling energy shortage would be over.

Dr Pasha pointed out that despite its risks, Pakistan was also a high-return country, a fact that the government must use for the advantage of getting foreign investment.

About the scenario in India, Prof Hemant Kumar Shah from Ahmadabad H. K. Arts College pointed out how Gujarat had shown great improvement in its economic growth over the years. He spoke about how the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and Foreign Institutional Investor`s (FII) investment in Gujarat had increased from the early 1990`s to date.

Parliamentarians joining the dialogue included Mr Shehryar Afridi, MNA, PTI and Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan, MNA, PML-N.