E-Paper
WB lends Rs 1,200 crore for farm innovation
The World Bank would lend Rs 1,200 crore for research in Indian agriculture, reports Gaurav Choudhury.
The World Bank would lend Rs 1,200 crore for research in Indian agriculture. The amount would be used to implement the national agriculture innovation programme (NAIP) aimed at attaining a food grain output of 400 million tonnes by 2010, Dr. Mangla Rai, Director-General of theIndian Council for Agricultural Research (ICAR), said on Wednesday.
One of the major objectives of the NAIP is to bring about a change in the agricultural research system of India focussing on research on sustainable rural livelihood security and “basic and strategic research in the frontier areas of agricultural sciences."
The Project would be implemented by ICAR.
Speaking at meeting organised by industry chamber Assocham, Dr. Rai said World Bank's soft loan would be utilized over the next 5 years.
Rai said that ICAR would shortly call for projects from various stakeholders such as agriculture research institutes, training centres, research laboratories and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to suggest ways and means and also technologies to develop high-yielding seed varieties.
