India:New textile policy to promote cotton production, processing: Governor

If all the cotton produced in Maharashtra is processed entirely within the state, it will generate employment opportunities for approximately 10 lakh people, said Governor K Sankaranarayanan in Mumbai on Monday in his address to the state legislature on the opening day of the budget session. "A new textile policy is being announced by the government to exploit this opportunity. Cotton producing districts will be given higher incentives under this policy," he said.

"To meet legitimate development aspirations of the people and to improve their standard of living, the government has decided to benchmark districts on the basis of human development indicators. The human development report of each district will be published to ascertain their levels of development. This report will serve as a basis for planning development schemes in future," the Governor noted.

Referring to the regional imbalance in development, he said that to revisit the issue of backlog and equitable distribution of development expenditure, and explore alternate ways of ensuring equitable allocation of resources, the government is setting up a committee of experts.

He also said that farmers who are regular in repayment can avail an interest-free crop loan of up to Rs 50,000 and for them the interest rate on loan beyond Rs 50,000 and up to Rs 3 lakh would now be 2%. Till February 2011, banks had disbursed Rs 11,358 crore as crop loans. It is proposed to increase this amount to Rs 20,000 crore by the year 2014-15.

In the winter session, the government had announced an Rs 1,088.88 crore relief package for farmers affected by heavy rains due to the unusually prolonged monsoon extending till November 2010, as well as spells of unusual hot weather. The disbursement of this relief is in progress, he noted.

The Governor announced that the state government had decided to develop 'Village Soil Fertility Index' to improve the quality of soil of all villages in the state in a phased manner under Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY). Out of 43,711 villages in the state, 6,312 villages have been selected during the year 2010-11 under the project. This soil profiling will benefit around 12.94 lakh farmers, he said.

Considering the increasing demand of fertilisers the government has plans to create a buffer stock of six lakh metric tonnes. It is planned to distribute the buffer stock to various districts before May 15 to ensure smooth and timely supply of fertilisers to farmers.

The Centre has formulated an integrated action plan to be implemented in Gondia and Gadchiroli districts to reinforce efforts in providing basic needs and employment to people in these areas. In order to provide specialised training to police in anti-Naxal operations in forest areas, 'Alpha Hawk Academy' is being established at Nagpur, he announced.

The Times Of India