The Indian government has claimed that the agriculture sector has revived, despite some odds in the last two years.
According to Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, the revival in the agriculture sector has been due to the record production of 216 million tonnes of foodgrains, 22.7 million bales of cotton and 345 million tonnes of sugarcane in 2006-07.
He said this revival was a result of the amendments made in the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee Acts by the various state governments with the guidelines of the centre. These reforms in the market have provided the farmers better opportunity in realizing the
higher prices for their produce, he said.
He also claimed that due to the reforms credit availability had been more than doubled in the last three years and irrigation expansion programmes had been taken up.
Nearly 60 percent of the funds have been distributed to the 31 agriculturally distressed districts in the four states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharastra, Karnataka and Kerala under the rehabilitation package, said the Minister.
As per a note of the ministry, while the package is worth Rs 16,979 crore (Rs 169.79 billion), Rs 9,434 crore (Rs 94.34 billion) has been released to these four states, he added.