Agri boost must for 10 pc economic growth: PM

NEW DELHI: Achieving a double digit economic growth will require "determined efforts" to increase India's agricultural productivity, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday.

"Our medium-term target is to achieve a growth rate of 10 per cent per annum... However, its achievement will require determined efforts to increase investment in social and economic infrastructure, enhance productivity in agriculture...," he said at his national press conference here to mark the completion of one year of the UPA-II government in office.

About 60 percent of India's population depends on agriculture, but its contribution to the national output is less than 20 percent.

Singh said addressing key constraints to the modernisation and expansion of infrastructure and agriculture needs long-term strategies, backed by stepped up investment. "We have taken important steps in these areas, which will continue to receive the focused attention of the government," he said.

The farm sector is estimated to have shown a negative growth of two per cent in fiscal 2009-10, while the overall economy expanded by 7.2 per cent, as per provisional data.

Among the steps taken by the UPA government, which has completed the first year of its second term, is a substantial increase in the minimum support price (MSP) to farmers. Farm credit has also been stepped up to over Rs 3,00,000 crore and agriculture loans worth Rs 70,000 crore have been waived.

Due to low productivity and lack of agri infrastructure, the 10th Plan target of four per cent growth in the farm sector has not been achieved.