India's food productivity is major concern: PM

New Delhi, Feb 1: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday, Feb 1, expressed concern over India's food security and productivity.

Addressing the first annual conference of chief secretaries, Singh said, "Our experience in the past two years has brought to the fore the importance of food security and the need for containing prices."

"For some time past, there was a false sense of security that availability of food has ceased to be a concern. Similarly, many felt that we have been able to control prices," he said.

Prime Minister urged the state governments to focus their energies on farm productivity.

He said there was great scope for improving the yields of major crops and hoped to see greater efforts in achieving this.

"Our agricultural productivity still ranks far below the best in the world," Singh said.

The prime minister also expressed concern over poor infrastructure in the country and said, "States that have lagged behind must go that extra mile to remove all the bottlenecks."

"Shortages of electricity, poor roads, over-crowded ports, delayed flights, all retard our economic efficiency and damage our international image. States that have relatively better infrastructure attract investment while the others lag behind," he added.

OneIndia News