The politics of Indian agriculture where strategies change

New Delhi, May 13 (UNI) In the wake of a series of electoral defeats for the ruling Congress, a new look agricultural policy will take shape tomorrow at the full meeting of the Planning Commission which will aim at producing tangible results in the short term to combat rural distress.

The meeting, to be chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will work out area-specific programmes for procurring optimal yield for various crops.

For instance, Planning Commission sources say, the yield in wheat production could be enhanced by six per cent in Punjab and as much as 60 per cent in Madhya Pradesh by simply providing appropriate extension services and other inputs such as better quality seeds.

Similar is the case with other crops. The State-wise variation in appropriate combinations leading to higher yields is rather high.

The main agenda of the meeting to be held at Yojna Bhavan is to step up agricultural growth rate to four per cent per annum from the present level of a little more than two per cent.

The meeting will also draw out an agricultural strategy for the Eleventh Plan (2007-11). It will go into the Report of the NDC Sub-Committee on Agriculture, headed by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, which had set up various working groups chaired by different chief ministers.

The key recommendations of the NDC Committee are: region-wise planning; policy for enhancing investment plan outlays; effective water resource management; natural resource management; credit and risk management; marketing and post-harvest management; and a strategy for optimising gains from globalisation and protecting livelihoods.

The other suggestions of the NDC Report are land related measures, such as contract farming, land leasing and a land share company.

On animal husbandary, the Commmittee has spoken about breed improvement, milk and meat productivity, disease mitigation and better exploitation of deep sea and marine culture.

Sources say the Prime Minister has desired that unnecessary time should not be wasted at the meeting in polemics and long-winding theoretical debates on the prognosis of the problems of agriculture.

Rather the attempt should be at identifying specific areas where action needs to be taken within the next year so that tangible results could be visible in the short term.

The Prime Minister has also desired that the Plan Panel should work out specific strategies for bridging the yield and technology gaps in agriculture as well as improving the conditions under which farming is carried out.

The policy shift comes in the backdrop of rumblings over the results of the Assemblies polls in Punjab, Uttrakhand and Uttar Pradesh and the Muncipal Corporation elections in Delhi, where the Congress got a serious drubbing.

Informed sources say the empahsis of the Planning Commission and the Agriculture Ministry has shifted from an immediate long-term perspective to results to be obtained in the near future. This alone can help the UPA government improve its image -- a government which has worked for the empowerment of the downtrodden -- and perhaps change its fortunes in the General Elections that are just two years down the line.

MORE UNI