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May 21, 2007 11:24 IST
The West Bengal government is chalking out a new plan to set right the serious agricultural imbalance that the state faces.
The state is the largest producer of rice, jute and vegetables in India. But production of wheat, pulses, oilseeds and maize are so deficient that West Bengal is depending heavily on other states.
In order to correct the imbalance, the West Bengal government is coming out with a detailed action plan for promoting crop diversification in the state's cultivable area of nearly 55 lakh (5.5 million) hectares.
The plan's main thrust is to limit the acreage under paddy cultivation by 5 per cent over the next five years and to raise acreage under oilseed by 5.8 per cent, pulses by 5.5 per cent, maize by 2.2 per cent and wheat by 0.8 per cent over the next five years.
West Bengal Agriculture Minister Naren Dey said the five-year action plan will be launched from the current kharif season. "We will curtail the area under paddy cultivation. But adequate measures will be taken to arrest any decline in rice production," Dev said.
He said the most important part of the action plan is to raise acreage under hybrid paddy cultivation by 4.4 percent, which has higher yield rate than high-yielding varieties.
"Farmers will be given seeds at concessional rates to popularise cultivation of hybrid rice varieties," the minister pointed out.
Oilseeds production in the state is around 560,000 tones, which meets just 40 per cent requirement of the state's edible oil requirement. The supply-demand pattern is more or less similar with pulses and wheat.
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