Centre pats itself for a bumper harvest, to focus on pulse output

NEWDELHI: As the country enjoys an advance estimate of a record harvest, the NDA government has attributed the bumper harvest to its appropriate policy interventions.

The estimated production of foodgrains for the ongoing financial year is 271.98 million tones, more than the previous highest record of 265.57 million tonnes in 2013-14. A note from the government said there were close monitoring apart from the normal rains and efforts of the farmers.

“Assignment of targets, timely allocation and release of resources and pre-positioning and timely distribution of agricultural inputs under different schemes of the government like National Food Security Mission the concerted efforts both by the Central and states governments resulted in a bumper production during the current year,” the note said.

The Centre wants to hail the achievement in the backdrop of the Opposition parties’ criticism of the demonetisation and their widespread apprehension that agriculture will be badly hit due to cash crunch.

The Centre’s note also didn’t take note of the UPA-era efforts to boost the production of pulses, the main source of protein for a vast rural population. It only noted that the focus on growing pulses that involved a five-year road map starting from 2016-17. The Centre targeted to produce 21.25 million tonnes during the current year which has been estimated to reach 22.14 million tonnes. “The strategy included motivating the states for higher coverage of rainfed areas in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, UP, Tamil Nadu and rice fallows in Eastern states,” said the note.

A decision has been taken to procure two million tonnes of pulses for buffer stock through NAFED, SFAC and FCI and to provide better price to farmers for their produce, the note added.