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Tamil Nadu
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Chennai
WARM GREETINGS: Governor Surjit Singh Barnala and Union Minister T.R. Baalu at a seminar in Chennai. CHENNAI: The Centre is proposing to set up a dedicated ‘green corridor’ to enable farmers to move agricultural products smoothly from the rural areas to major towns or cities, Union Minister for Shipping, Road Transport and Highways T.R. Baalu said here on Tuesday. Delivering the presidential address at a seminar on ‘Warehousing (Development & Regulation) Act: issues and challenges,’ he said the farmers need not pay toll for using the green corridor as they had been contributing to the economic development of the country. The service road alongside the six-lane ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ and the North-South corridor would be called the green corridor. It would not interfere with vehicles plying on the corridor and the six-lane highway. Mr. Baalu said that in the last three or four years, the Centre was investing heavily in infrastructure to improve road, port and rail connectivity to move farm products. Under the National Highways Development Project (NHDP), seven major projects costing Rs.2,87,690 crore were taken up in different parts of the country, and all these would be completed by 2015-2016. The Minister called for increasing the warehousing holding capacity. “Grain production has increased from 51 million tonnes in 1950-1951 to 231 million tonnes in 2007-2008 and we also procure 33.5 million tonnes of wheat and rice, whereas the warehousing holding capacity is 54 million tonnes when it should have been at least 133 million tonnes.” Record productionN.K. Raghupathi, Additional Secretary and Financial Adviser in the Union Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution said, “The country witnessed record wheat production in rabi marketing season 2008-2009 and as per the latest projections made by the Union Ministry of Agriculture last week, we are poised for record rice production in the kharif season.” To ensure that farmers got the best price for their produce, the Centre increased the minimum support price (MSP) of wheat to Rs.1,000 per quintal from Rs.640, and of paddy to Rs.850 per quintal from Rs. 570 per quintal. Besides, Central and State government agencies procured food grains at the MSP to avoid distress sale by farmers, he said. Governor Surjit Singh Barnala laid stress on empowering farmers, finding ways to explore better methods for agricultural produce management, promotion and encouragement of private sector to invest in the agriculture sector. “Of late, there has been a recession and the contribution by the farming community has decreased due to vivid reasons. Agriculture stands at a critical stage with its share in the GDP constantly decreasing…we need a concerted efforts to encompass all the activities and all the stakeholders,” he said. Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) conducted the workshop to sensitise different stakeholders of the Warehousing Act. FICCI Tamil Nadu State Council chairman M. Rafeeque Ahmed said the introduction of Negotiable Warehouse Receipts (NWRs) would help farmers to avoid distress sale of their produce as it ensured finance against their produce stored in registered warehouses.
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