Haryana achieves highest ever kharif grains production

Chandigarh, Jan 15: Despite having 40 per cent less rainfall during the monsoon season last year, the farmers of Haryana have reaped the richest ever kharif harvest, with an all time high production of 44.98 lakh metric tonnes during the kharif-2006-07 season.

This is 12 per cent higher than the previous years production of 39.87 lakh metric tonnes.

Disclosing this, here today, state Agriculture Minister Harmohinder Singh Chatha said this historic achievement was made possible by the grit and toil of Haryana peasantry and the earnest efforts of Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda's led Congress government.

He said the final estimates of area, average yield and production of kharif crops released by the Directorate of Agriculture has revealed that the state made impressive strides in increasing productivity of practically all the kharif crops during the year.

The productivity of rice at 32.38 quintals per hectare, cotton lint at 5.82 quintals per hectare and bajra at 16.49 quintals per hectare were at their highest ever.

It was primarily because of such high increases in productivity that despite a reduction in area under the leading kharif crop of paddy (from last year 10.52 lakh hectares to 10.41 lakh hectares) that the total kharif foodgrains production amounted to 44.98 lakh metric tonnes. This comprises the production of 33.71 lakh metric tonnes of rice, 10.24 lakh metric of bajra, 32,000 MTs of maize, 26000 MTs of jowar and 45000 MTs of kharif pulses.

Mr Chatha said the productivity of cotton was recorded at 18.14 lakh bales of 170 kg each, which amounts to a 20 per cent increase over last year's production of 14.99 lakh bales. The productivity of American cotton was recorded at 5.90 quintals per hectare whereas that of desi cotton was recorded at 5.38 quintal per hectare.

Complimenting the officials of the Agriculture Department, he said that the strong extension work in the field had paid these rich dividends.

Recalling that the Department had achieved incredible success in its campaign to weaven away the farmers from the cultivation of Sathi (summer paddy), he said the government left no stone unturned in providing adequate irrigation water, power, certified seeds and fertilisers to the farmers across the state.

Mr Chatha said that during Kharif 2006 weather condition remained adverse to the crops. There was overall deficit of 40 per cent in the rainfall last year. The state received 296 mm rainfall from June to September in 2006 as compared to 510 mm rainfall during the same period in 2005. The rainfall fell short by 11 mm during June, 64 mm during July, 41 mm during August and 118 mm during September 2006.

Mr Chatha said that to supplement this loss of rain, the Power Utilities ensured that adequate power supply was available for tubewells. The Power Utilities supplied 29 lakh units per day more during June, 33 lakh units per day more during July and 12 lakh units per day more during August compared with respective months in 2005.

He said the sale of certified seeds of various kharif crops registered impressive increase from 95,000 quintals to 1.25 lakh quintals in the last season. The consumption of DAP and urea during kharif 2005 remained at 1.47 lakh MTs and 7.04 lakh MTs respectively whereas during kharif 2006 it was 1.60 lakh MTs and 7.50 lakh MTs respectively, an increase of about 8-10 per cent.

While district Karnal continued to lead in overall production of rice at 5.53 lakh MTs, the production of Bajra was highest in district Bhiwani at 2.48 lakh MTs. Production of maize was the highest in Ambala at 18,000 MTs while Rohtak and Jhajjar shared the honour for the highest production of jowar which was 7000 tonnes each, he informed.

Production of cotton was highest in district Sirsa at 7.48 lakh bales of 170 kg each.

In terms of productivity, the most impressive progress was of district Fatehebad which led the state in the production of rice, at 44.62 quintals per hectare and also in productivity of cotton at 6.97 quintals per hectare. The district was second in productivity of bajra at 23.57 per hectare while the highest productivity of bajra was recorded in district Karnal at 29.32 quintal per hectare.

UNI