Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister, Mr. Radha Mohan Singh has said that NSSO should release data in 5 years instead of 10 years. He added that this will help government to formulate plans for the farmers especially the small and marginal farmers. Shri Singh said this on the occasion of the 10th Statistics Day, here today.
Shri Singh said that it is imperative to remove regional disparity so as to achieve economic and social development and regional disparity cannot be removed until the related statistics are provided. He further said that statistics play a vital role to formulate the schemes related to agriculture, agricultural products and other arenas. For instance, to implement crop insurance scheme, its product estimation is required on Panchayat and at village level. Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister added that according to available updated land utilization statistics 2012-13, more than half of the cropped area had been remained un-irrigated in the country even after 60 years of planned development.
To face the situation created by delayed / deficit rainfall, preparation of suitable emergent schemes and their affective implementation, crop component, irrigation facilities, situation of rainfall, agriculture related climatic condition, etc. – the timely availability of all these statistics are critical. The availability of credible data related to output utilization along with agricultural products is not only significant for agriculture and allied sector but also important to assess the potentiality related to farmers’ income and their profession. Shri Singh further added that central government has implemented a number of important schemes for the welfare of agriculture and farmers. In the back ground of these schemes, the agricultural statistics has to play an important role so as to improve the condition of the farmers and to increase food grain security. He further observed that time bound data is required for the compilation of data related, on sophisticated technology and policy making basis. The Minister said that sophisticated technology should be utilized for the compilation of data. He further said affective methodology should be explored for the assured statistics and agricultural sectors with minimum time gap. Shri Singh briefed that Ministry of Agriculture is implementing a scheme named as Fasal for the utilization of sophisticated technology available to assess the Agricultural products. The Department of Space, Indian Metrological Department and Economic Development Institute are sharing the process of implementation of this scheme.
A Mahalanobis National Crop Forecast Centre (MNCFC) has been established in the Department which is providing the estimate related to remote sensing technology based production of chosen crops. He observed that forecast estimates provided by MNCFC are very much useful. Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister said that Ministry of Agriculture has taken an important initiative in respect of adopting remote sensing technology for the assessment of horticultural production. The Ministry has initiated a pilot project named as Chaman. 11 prominent states have been included in this project so as to develop remote sensing based program for the assessment of area and production related to horticulture crop. Shri Singh briefed that Government is formulating a scheme with the use of sophisticated technology so that extensive physical data may be created through livestock census. The Minister said that it is high time that statistics methodology should be utilized to sort out the problem for providing credible and assured data on lower level. This challenge may be used through the use of sophisticated technology for the compilation of data related. Shri Singh requested the state government that they should take an active initiative to strengthen their methodology in the perspective of agricultural statistics.