Call for increased agricultural productivity

Today agriculture contributes only 18 per cent of India’s total income, but more than 50 per cent of country’s population lives in rural India.” So any decline in agriculture will cause distress in rural areas”, he said while releasing data on MP Fund utilisation by Prof M.S. Swaminathan during his tenure as MP. “Despite all the progress we made, agriculture is still dependent on monsoon. We need to focus on many things to increase productivity. We really need to see the area where irrigation needs to grow up substantially.”

Unless agricultural productivity increased, it did not provide enough income to those who had small landholdings. He said that the green revolution resulted in a quantum jump in agricultural productivity. “We really need to look at interventions and innovations, which will result in substantial increase in agricultural productivity.”

Commenting on the MP funds utilisation, Dr, Rangarajan said the better utilisation of MP funds can change rural India. Major part of Dr Swaminathan’s MP funds were utilised for projects like village development, building toilets, education etc which created an impact in the rural areas. Schemes and initiatives like these, with small sums of money, can be an instrument for changing the rural scenario, he said.

Speaking about the utilisation of '18 crore under MPLADs scheme, Swaminathan lamented that the word accountability was fast going out of the dictionary. Through these funds, much could be done, as it was flexible funding. The idea was to fill an important gap in the needs of the people. “At this juncture, I am reminded of Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam’s dream of PURA (Provision of Urban Amenities to Rural Areas) and our need to bridge the urban-rural divide,” he said.