Farm sector to fall short of target; Montek says improve productivity

New Delhi, Nov 4 : Stating that increasing agricultural productivity was crucial, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said the farm sector growth will fall much short of the targeted four per cent growth on account of floods and severe drought in the country.

''It is extremely unlikely that the agriculture sector will grow more than four per cent this year. The sector is not growing as it should have been,'' Dr Ahluwalia told the Economic Editors' Conference here.

Dr Ahluwalia, however, said this would not pose a problem to food supplies in the country.

He said the long term sustainable solution to the problem of Indian agriculture was in improving existing technologies and proper farming techniques to increase yields.

Dr Ahluwalia said increase in procurement prices and supportive government policies would help the farming sector to perform better in the Eleventh Plan period (2007-12), Dr Ahluwalia said.

The agricultural sector grew 1.6 per cent last fiscal, down from 4.9 per cent in 2007-08. It is expected to contract by two per cent this fiscal.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
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