Farmers progress crucial to ensure nation's progress: PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said there was a need to make the nation's farmers more aware to ensure their progress, which would in turn ensure India's progress.

He was speaking at the launch of a 'Kisan Channel' in the national capital.

"If you want the country to progress, the villages need to progress first, and for the villages to progress the farmers need to progress. More than 50 percent farmers in villages have no idea that there is an agriculture ministry or a minister for agriculture in the government, and therefore, we are launching the Kisan channel to make farmers more aware," Modi said.

"Some people must be thinking that there are so many channels, what new can we get from this one. But when there are too many things, it gets difficult to locate the important ones. Because the information on sports is available through many channels, people of this country have started taking interests in different forms of sports," he said.

"Our average is two tons per hectare in paddy, whereas the world average is three tons. We should have the tehsils compete amongst each other to improve production. Lal Bahadur Shastri ji once gave a mantra of 'Jai Jawan Jai Kisan' and the farmer of the nation got inspired by that mantra. An effort needs to be made to bring a change to the agriculture movement of this nation which then betters the economy," he added.