Agriculture's contribution to GDP alarming: Narayana Murthy

Bangalore, Jan 18 (UNI) IT major Infosys Chief Mentor N R Narayana Murthy today said the agricultural sector's decrease in contribution to the country's GDP growth was alarming and there was an urgent need to improve the situation.

Delivering the keynote address at a function organised to felicitate 63 people from Asia with Ashoka Fellowships, he said agriculture sector used to contribute 3.2 per cent of the GDP till 1995, but it had now gone down to 1.9 per cent due to various reasons, including poor prices for agricultural produce.

Mr Murthy felt that the subsidy given by the Government to the sector was not well managed. ''Eight billion Dollar subsidy for agriculture was not fine tuned. There was no freehand for farmers to select the pesticide. Nitrogen was imposed and it has led to deterioration in sand quality...In our attempt to more accelerate the industrial sector, we have ignored the agriculture sector.'' Referring to the 63 noted personalities, he said each have contributed remarkably in their own field for the development of society. ''Their contribution was nothing less to building infrastructure and creating a mechanism to make the deprived become full right citizen,'' he added.

Ashoka Innovations for the Public Chairman Bill Drayton said that ''in the present world, there is enough opportunity for each and every one to contribute to the betterment of society. But we have to take advantage of the situation and strive for serving the needy.'' Asoka Innovators for the Public is a global association of the world's leading social entrepreneurs, men and women with system changing solutions for the world's most urgent social problems.

Since its inception in 1981, the organisation had elected over 1,800 leading social entrepreneurs as 'Ashoka fellows', providing them with living stipends, professional support and access to a global network of peers in over 60 countries.

Those felicitated today hailed from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

UNI