Madhya Pradesh gets Krishi Karman Award second time
Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh has emerged as Grain Bowl of the India contributing immensely to India’s granary with steady and excellent growth in food grain production. President Dr. Pranab Mukherjee presented the prestigious Krishi Karman Award to the Chief Minister Shri Shivraj Singh Chouhan at a grand award ceremony at Vigyan Bhavan here today.
Madhya Pradesh is the only state to have won the Krishi Karman Award in the total food grain production category consecutively for second time since the institution of Award in 2010-11. The Award carries a trophy, a citation and cash Rs. 2 crore in total food grain production category. Farmers Smt. Shashi Khandelwal from Chaurai in Chhindwara and Shri Yogendra Kaushik from Badnagar, Ujjain were honoured by the President as ideal farmers.
Those present included Union Minister for Agriculture Shri Sharad Pawar, Minister for Forest and Environment Shri Virappa Moily, Minister for Agriculture Madhya Pradesh Shri Gauri Shankar Bisen, MP State BJP President Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, General Secretary Shri Arvind Menon, Agriculture Production Commissioner Shri Madan Mohan Upadhyay, Principal Secretary Agriculture Dr. Rajesh Rajora, Director Agriculture Shri D. N. Sharma and other senior officers.
The impressive performance of Madhya Pradesh agriculture sector is attributable to increase in irrigation capacity, uninterrupted power supply, improved storage infrastructure, timely supply of farm inputs like seeds, fertilizers, and farmer friendly bold decisions like zero percent interest on farm loans and bonus on wheat, rice, maize procurement. It is for the first time the state excelled in wheat, pulses and paddy.
Madhya Pradesh has topped in food grain production in the country with the food grain production of 277 lakh tons in 2012-13 including 161 lakh tons of wheat. It has maintained double digit agriculture growth rate. In respect of wheat procurement, Madhya Pradesh has maintained its ranking in the country. The contribution of Madhya Pradesh to India’s total food grain production goes up to 11.2% in 2012-13.It contributes 17.5 % to India’s total wheat production and 28.65% to total pulses production.
Madhya Pradesh surpassed Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Bihar in the category of States producing over 10 million tones food grain. The State’s performance for the Award was adjudged on 7 criteria – production of grains, yield, procurement, progress of expenditure, yield increase over all India average and significant initiatives. Madhya Pradesh did excellently well in each criteria.
The production of food grains was 128.90 LMT in 2007- 08, which increased to 277 LMT in 2012-13. Similarly, productivity increased from 1064 kg/hectare in 2007-08 to 1952 kg per hectare in 2012-13. Production of pulses touched 51.91 lakh MT in 2012-13 from 26.73 LMT in 2007-08.
Wheat Procurement: The state has performed outstandingly in production and procurement of wheat in last five years. The wheat productivity has increased to 2959 KG/Hectare in 2012-13 from 1714 KG/Hectare in 2007-08. Production of wheat was 67.37 lakh tones in 2007-08. It reached 161.25 lakh MT in 20012-13. This year Madhya Pradesh is expecting 175 lakh tones production. Initiatives like e-procurement of wheat and increase in bonus on procurement have encouraged wheat growing farmers. In last five years, bonus of Rs. 2752 crore was paid to them.
