District farm plans being readied

The Karnataka government is in the process of preparing the comprehensive district agriculture plans (C-DAP) for all districts in the state.

These plans are being prepared with the assistance of the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard), said Sudhakar Rao, chief secretary, Karnataka government.

Speaking at the day-long state credit seminar on State Focus Paper 2008-09, organised by Nabard, here today, he said the state has set itself a target of 4.5 per cent agriculture growth in the next decade against an all India target of 4 per cent and is expected to help increase the net income of the farmers.

"Karnataka is already in the forefront in implementing the watershed approach to address the vast areas under rainfed farming. Substantial investments are being made in creating and modernising rural infrastructure, even by borrowing from the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund of Nabard," Rao said.

Rao said the state government has agreed "in principle" to implement the recommendation of the task force on the revival of rural cooperative credit institutions constituted under the chairmanship of A Vaidyanathan and the same has been communicated to the Centre.

The state government is in the process of entering into an MoU with the Centre and Nabard, he said.