Agri sector faces issues in implementation of policy reforms: Niti Aayog member

New Delhi, Feb 5 () The Indian agriculture sector faces issues in making available customised technology to farmers and implementation of policy reforms, especially at the state level, NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand said on Wednesday.

He also emphasised the need to implement model central laws on Agriculture Produce and Livestock Marketing, land leasing and contract farming at the state level.

"Technology is the prime mover and India is facing serious problems both in terms of technology and policy reforms," he said at the release of 'India Commodity Year Book 2020'.

The states should be encouraged to play an active role in the overall growth of the agriculture sector and emphasized on the need for private sector to come forward, he said in a statement.

"We need to give the right role to right people and institutions. Market and the private people are the right people to pay competitive prices to farmers and we should remove hurdles which come in the way of the market," Chand said.

He said that for the first time the 15th Finance Commission has included a provision to give performance linked grants to states to undertake some agricultural reform.

"The Commission has included reform in agriculture sector among the top 5 areas for which next year states will be provided with incentives," Chand added.

He added that agriculture sector is witnessing the growth but with an increase in cost of production and it is one of the reasons why India is losing on export competitiveness.

FICCI National Agriculture Committee Chairman and Group President of TAFE Ltd T R Kesavan said there is a need to produce more and reduce the wastage in order to meet the requirements of increasing population.

FICCI National Agriculture Committee Co-Chair and National Collateral Management Services Ltd (NCML) Managing Director and CEO Siraj Chaudhry said problems in India are different at different parts of the country and the solutions cannot be one or few changes.

"Every region's problem needs to be addressed differently," he said. LUX MKJ