Tamil Nadu   

Final draft of 11th Plan likely to be ready by May

Special Correspondent

Revitalising the agricultural sector is a priority, says Naganathan

CHENNAI: A public consultation seeking inputs for the 11th Plan of Tamil Nadu has been completed, and the final draft is likely to be ready by May.

Announcing this at a press conference on Thursday, State Planning Commission vice-chairman M. Naganathan said the priority of the Rs.80, 000-crore Plan would be to recommend measures to revitalise the agricultural sector, in view of the agriculture crisis, essentially the decline in foodgrains production over the last few years. Most of the period was marked by drought, while flood devastated many parts in one year. The tsunami also contributed to the decline.

The agriculture sector had to be revived as 56 per cent of the State's population was engaged in farming. Moreover, if the State was to achieve the envisaged growth of 8.5 per cent, agriculture should grow by at least four per cent. The agriculture production came down from nearly 77 lakh tonnes in 2001-02 to just over 61 lakh tonnes in 2004-05. According to estimates for 2005-06, it was expected to improve to 74 lakh tonnes. The target for 2006-07 was 95 lakh tonnes.

Provision of credit through the cooperative sector at lower rates, price support and improving the market mechanism were some of the recommendations the Plan was likely to make. Noting that the objective of the consultation was to get a perspective of the ground reality, he said the seven rounds of meetings yielded "very useful information." Earlier, he participated in the seventh meeting for Chennai and neighbouring districts here.

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