Date:02/07/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/07/02/stories/2006070210180300.htm

Karnataka - Bidar

Separate budget for agriculture demanded

Staff Correspondent

Centre accused of neglecting farm sector

Bidar: The Confederation of Indian Farmers' Associations has demanded a separate national-level budget for agriculture on the lines of the Railway Budget.

Federation secretary-general P. Changal Reddy told presspersons here on Saturday that agriculture never got its due in the Union Budget. "Finance Ministers have a habit of clubbing farmers' issues with other issues. For example, the Centre's fiscal policy sets a target for banks to provide 18 per cent of their total loans to the agriculture sector. This was never followed in the last 25 years," he said.

Mr. Reddy said the national-level farm budget should include allocation for irrigation, horticulture, animal husbandry, co-operation, and coffee, tobacco, and other commodity boards.

He said the Centre's sugar control laws had ensured that farmers were paid two years after they supplied sugarcane to factories. The public sector oil companies deliberately stopped the production and use of ethanol. The Centre had allowed only nine of the 500 sugar factories in the country to take up ethanol production.

Brazil started using ethanol since 1926. It had attained near self-sufficiency in fuel. He urged the Centre to give permission to run irrigation pump sets on ethanol.