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Hooda seeks better price for crops

Special Correspondent

Low returns a major constraint for farm diversification

CHANDIGARH: Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Tuesday urged the Centre to provide remunerative Minimum Support Price (MSP) to the farmers for alternate crops to promote diversification.

Participating in the National Development Council (NDC) meeting in New Delhi, Mr. Hooda said that while contract farming and private markets could be made a tool for crop diversification, the first major constraint was low gross returns from alternate crops. There should be a proper institutional mechanism for procurement of cash crops, he added.

Mr. Hooda suggested establishment of marketing intelligence centres at every district headquarter so that farmers could be provided information on prevailing prices of commodities.

Second Green Revolution

While emphasising Haryana's commitment in ushering in a Second Green Revolution based on crop diversification, modern system of irrigation and farm management, he said this could not be achieved without the "massive and meaningful support'' from the Centre. Mr. Hooda also urged the Centre to immediately take up construction of upstream storages such as Renuka, Kishau and Lakhwar on the Yamuna by a central agency with adequate funding to maximise utilisation of water.

The Chief Minister emphasised the need to bring about legislative and constitutional changes to ensure that water was not wrongfully denied to citizens. Water was a national resource and its devolution had to be fair and equitable, he added while supporting the concept of interlinking of rivers and basins to transfer water to deficit basins.

Despite huge investments made by Haryana in irrigation infrastructure, it still continued to face serious water scarcity. Against a demand of 36 MAF, availability of ground and surface water was 14 MAF.

This was aggravated by non-availability of Ravi-Beas waters. Despite the Supreme Court verdict, Ravi Beas waters had been denied to Haryana through the Sutlej-Yamuna Link canal, he stated.

Resultantly, an additional one lakh tonnes of foodgrains which could be produced annually were lost. Also, this had added to additional power consumption by tube-wells and depletion of water levels, he added.

He demanded that in order to compensate Haryana for denial of Ravi-Beas waters, its share in unallocated power should be raised to enable the State to meet the additional irrigation requirements.

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Hooda seeks better price for crops

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