HYDERABAD, India, 1 August 2007 — The Indian government is working out new plans for the development of agriculture and allied sectors, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said here yesterday.
The minister said that a new 250-billion-rupee ($6.2 billion) additional central assistance (ACA) scheme will boost public investment in agriculture and allied sectors.
“To get benefit under the new scheme, state governments are required to prepare district and state agricultural plans and to maintain baseline share of agriculture and allied sectors in the total state plan expenditure. On its part, the federal government will bear a share beyond the baseline expenditure and provide ACA to states as grant,” he added.
He said the government planned to raise the production of rice, wheat and pulses under its food security program. The objective was to raise the production of rice by 10 million tons, wheat by eight million tons and pulses by two million tons by the end of the Eleventh Plan.
Pawar was accompanying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during his visit to the southern state of Andhra Pradesh yesterday. He briefed the media about Manmohan Singh’s talks with the state’s Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy.
Pawar said that the federal government had approved a rehabilitation package of 96.5 billion rupees for 16 districts of Andhra Pradesh where farmers had committed suicide in the past after crop failures. The package is being implemented with a time-frame of three years and includes both immediate and medium-term measures.
The prime minister’s visit to the state came after six communist activists were killed in police firing on Saturday when a protest organized to demand land for the poor turned violent Khammam district.
Hyderabad police tightened security in the city during the prime minister’s visit. The entire Public Garden premises, where the Jubilee Hall — the venue of the prime minister’s review meetings — is located, was declared out of bounds for the public.
Security was also beefed up at and around Raj Bhavan, where Manmohan Singh stayed during his visit to the city, as well as on the route from Raj Bhavan to Jubilee Hall.
There was also a massive police presence at Indira Park where leader of the opposition and Telugu Desam chief N. Chandrababu Naidu sat on a day’s token fast demanding the dismissal of the chief minister in the wake of the police firing.
Police prevented communist activists from taking out a protest rally. The activists were arrested near the city police commissioner’s office in Basheerbagh and taken to Bolaram police station on the city’s outskirts.
