Haryana to produce 36.75 lakh tonne rice in kharif season.

Chandigarh, July 17 (UNI) Haryana Agriculture Department has fixed a target to bring 10.50 lakh hectares of area under paddy to produce 36.75 lakh tonnes of rice during the ongoing kharif season, Agriculture Minister Harmohinder Singh Chatha said here today.

The total targeted production of kharif crop this season would be about 50 lakh tonnes which included production of rice, jwar.

maize, barley and pulses. the minister said adding the total area of over 19 lakh hectares would be covered under kharif crop this season.

Giving details, Mr. Chatha said that jwar would be cultivated over an area of 1 lakh hectare to achieve the production target of 45,000 tonnes, maize over an area of 20,000 hectares to produce 52,000 tonnes. Similarly, barley would be cultivated over 6.50 lakh hectares to produce over 11.38 lakh tonnes and pulses over 90,000 hectares to produce 90,000 tonnes.

The Minister said that however, the success of kharif crops largely depended upon the magnitude and behaviour of monsoon rains.

Nevertheless, the Power Utilities had been directed to ensure adequate power supply to the tube wells. He expressed hope that as a result of this, the farmers would be able to reap record production of kharif crop.

He informed that during last Rabi an area of 1.08 lakh hectares under gram and 5.97 lakh hectares under oilseed had been covered to produce 91,000 tonnes of gram and 8.02 lakh tonnes of oilseed respectively.

Similarly, an area of 23.76 lakh hectares was covered under wheat, the main crop of rabi season achieving production of 100.55 lakh tonnes.

The coverage under barley and other rabi pulses remained in the order of 38,000 hectare and 6,000 hectares with production of 1.15 lakh tonnes and 6,000 tonnes respectively, he added.

He said that during Rabi 2007-08, the total area and production target of all the crops had been fixed at 26.05 lakh hectares and 102.45 lakh tonnes respectively.

An area of 1.50 lakh hectares under gram and 7 lakh hectares under oilseed would be covered to produce 1.5 lakh tonnes of gram and 10.92 lakh tones of oilseeds respectively.

Similarly, an area of 24 lakh hectares had been fixed to be covered under wheat to achieve production of 99.60 lakh tonnes.

He said with the hard work and toil of farmers and timely steps taken by the State government in supplying the agricultural inputs, the total production during the year 2006-07 of the foodgrain production touched the new land mark in the state which was the second largest contributor of foodgrain to the central pool.

Mr. Chatha said that guar's cultivation was being popularised in Haryana as it was an important industrial crop.

The cultivation of guar also served the purpose of sustaining soil fertility. Area coverage under the crop was at 3 lakh hectares during kharif 2007 as against achievement of 2.95 lakh hectares during last kharif season, he said.

UNI