A projected delay in the rains over the Hindi heartland including UP, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, is giving jitters to the farm ministry, which is trying to increase output in these low-productivity states. To top it, defunct water resources in these areas are compounding the problem. The resultant water scarcity is affecting the preparation of paddy nurseries this in turn is likely to delay shifting of saplings into the main fields in the month of August.
Sources said there is little benefit of stored water available to the farmers in these areas as maintenance of the assets, created during the first five-year-plan, operate at less than half of the capacity owing to poor maintenance.
Low credit availability and perennial power shortages further add to the woes of the farmers in this region, said officials.
Low availability of water also leads to increased threat of pest attack especially during the ongoing kharif sowing season. This has led the farmers of the region to depend largely on long duration rice varieties, which can be harvested in November.
“By mid July we will have a clear picture of the kharif sowing,” said a senior farm ministry official. Low farm productivity in big states like UP, Bihar, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal as compared to high yielding Punjab and Haryana, which feed the entire country, is proving to be a limiting factor to India’s food security in the long run.
Data available with the agriculture ministry shows that while the states like Punjab and Haryana have a per hectare yield of 4255 quintals and 3420 quintals, some of the big states like UP, Bihar, MP, Maharashtra and Orissa produce only 2206 quintals, 1546 quintals, 1069 quintals, 1150 quintals and 1484 quintals per hectare respectively.
With around 60 per cent of the Indian agriculture still dependent on monsoon, experts said the progress of providing irrigation facilities in non-traditional areas remains abysmally poor.
Indifference of the states governments towards the subject and low investment to create infrastructure facilities continue to drag the overall agricultural productivity in India.