Green Revolution to be extended in Bihar and neighbors

New Delhi: Union Budget 2010 has allocated additional Rs 400 crore under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana for extending green revolution to the Eastern Region of the country comprising of Bihar, Jharkhand, Eastern UP, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal.
Green revolution envisages adoption of new seed varieties, farm machines, nutrients, pesticides and knowledge based intervention as developed for different agro climatic zones. Essentially, the objective is to increase the crop productivity by intensive cultivation through promotion of recommended agriculture technologies and package of practices.
In order to implement the initiative, a preliminary meeting with the State Agriculture secretaries/Directors of Agriculture of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, UP and West Bengal was held on 18th March, 2010 during the National Kharif Conference at New Delhi.
It was brought out in the meeting that the Eastern Region was primarily rice based farming system, the efforts envisaged are to increase the productivity of the rice and other crops of the farming system like maize, oilseeds and pulses.
There are crop development programs and schemes that are promoting technologies for increasing the productivity of these crops in these States particularly targeting the low productivity districts. The current initiative should develop the missing links in the agriculture infrastructure in a manner that enhances the efficacy of such schemes and programs.
In this context it was decided that each State would prepare a strategic plan prioritizing the key areas in terms of technology promotion for addressing the main constraints that were impeding the agriculture productivity despite there being a good potential for development. This strategic plan would also take into account the current ongoing initiatives for the identified priorities and would seek to supplement those efforts with the budgetary allocation made available this year.
Based on the agreed strategic plan, an action plan prepared by the State Government in terms of specific programs and components identifying the locations where the initiative could be implemented was then considered by the SLSC headed by the Chief Secretary of the State with representation from Ministry of Agriculture and Planning Commission.