BHUBANESWAR: The state government has requested the Centre to increase the pulse demonstration programme allocation from Rs 24.74 crore to Rs 200 crore for covering an area of two lakh hectares.
The government submitted a memorandum to the Centre during the national conference on kharif in New Delhi on Friday. It also urged the Ministry of Agriculture to sanction Rs 80.5 crore for the digital crop survey annual action plan, of which Rs 42.75 crore has been approved.
The Centre was requested to increase borewell subsidy to Rs 1 lakh, make provisions for barbed wire fencing against elephant menace and enhancing the assistance for spices like ginger and turmeric to Rs 1.50 lakh per hectare. Deputy chief minister KV Singh Deo along with officials from the Agriculture department attended the conference. Singh Deo said Odisha’s agriculture sector has grown at an impressive rate of 5.3 per cent in 2025-26, outperforming the national average of 3.1 per cent. This momentum was built upon harvest of over 150 lakh tonne of food grains and 156 lakh tonne of horticulture produce.
Besides, Odisha has set up a Rs 100 crore corpus fund to supply four lakh quintals of certified seeds and a Rs 240 crore corpus fund for supply of 11.43 lakh tonne of fertilisers, he said.