The Hindu Business Line : Farm it out, PM tells pvt sector — `Major steps taken for single integrated market'

WAY TO GO: The Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, with (from left) the Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr Kamal Nath, the Founder & Executive Chairman, WEF, Mr Klaus Schwab, and the CII President, Mr Y.C. Deveshwar, at the India Economic Summit 2005 in the Capital on Tuesday. — Kamal Narang

New Delhi , Nov. 29

THE private sector today got a special invitation from the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to seize the immense opportunities in agriculture, both for supplying inputs and for processing and marketing the produce.

Addressing the closing session of the India Economic Summit 2005, the Prime Minister said, "I see immense opportunities for private enterprise in agriculture... Agriculture growth is slowly responding to our initiatives and if we sustain our efforts, we may see India emerging as a granary of the world. The private sector must not miss out on this opportunity and must ride the boom that I see on the horizon."

Dr Singh said though the Tenth Plan assumed a growth rate of four per cent for agricultural production, the reality was different.

"In the first three years, we have not been able to ensure even 1.5 per cent rate of growth... We are focusing on technological breakthroughs for scaling up yields. I am convinced that our farmers - like our industrialists - are among the best in the world and can compete with the best. If we have faith in this, we should work towards liberating Indian agriculture from controls that shackle its potential," the Prime Minister said.

He said the integrated food law, the transferable warehouse receipts and the advanced forward market in commodities, along with the amendments to the Essential Commodities Act, were major steps towards having a single integrated market for agriculture in India.

About the overall economy, the Prime Minister said it was likely to grow by about 7.5 per cent this year.

He said the experience of the past two decades must give India the confidence to pursue bolder changes in areas that were till now shied away from (urban governance, rural marketing and labour laws).

"It is certainly within the realm of possibility that an appropriate combination of policies can raise this (GDP growth) beyond eight per cent easily. In fact, we should be targeting a 10-per cent growth in two to three years," Dr Singh said.

He said there were no external constraints to India's growth and whatever constraints there were, they were only internal - "constraints imposed by our polity, our social structures, our regional imbalances, our ability to handle inequity, and our ability to take hard but essential decisions."

On the external front, Dr Singh said India was actively engaged with the world economy and that the Government was committed to bringing down tariff to ASEAN levels.

He said India was actively pursuing regional trading arrangements and was on the verge of entering into one with ASEAN next month.

In the next few years, he expected the rise of a major free trade area in Asia, covering all major economies including China, Japan and South Korea and possibly extending to New Zealand and Australia.

On infrastructure, the Prime Minister said that the road sector was humming with activity and that the Government expected an investment of over Rs 1,70,000 crore in the National Highways Development Project in seven years.

As regards foreign direct investment (FDI), the Prime Minister said that barring the financial, retailing and coal mining sectors, the Government was extremely liberal in welcoming FDI in other sectors.

"There is a Group of Ministers which is examining the ways of rationalising the current FDI regime so that there is less red tape. As far as FDI is concerned, it is not policy but badly designed procedures and poor infrastructure that are constraints," he said.

On FDI in retail, Dr Singh said the Government was engaged in an "intellectually stimulating" exercise to understand the possibilities in opening up the sector and "how best we can harness it for our needs."

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