Cultivable land in India has declined by around 8 lakh hectare in the last five years due to shift to non-agricultural purposes, parliament was informed on Tuesday.

As compared to 1,83,186 thousand hectares during 2003-04, the agricultural land in the country has come down to 1,82,385 thousand hectares during 2008-09, minister of state for agriculture Harish Rawat said in a written reply to lok sabha.

He said these farm lands were being used for non- agricultural purposes including buildings, roads and railways.

Rawat noted, however, that as a result of various initiatives taken by the government to enhance production and productivity in the agriculture sector, the production of foodgrains has increased considerably.

He said the marginal decline in the agricultural land is not likely to have any adverse impact on farm production.

Further, to increase the agricultural area and for maintaining balance in its use for different purposes, the government is implementing various programmes/schemes.

These include National Watershed Development Project for Rainfed Areas (NWDPRA) and Soil Conservation in the Catchments of River Valley projects and Flood Prone Rivers (RVP & FPR) among others, the minister added.

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CPI(M) seeks MPs' panel to study crisis-ridden agrarian sector

(PTI) The CPI(M) on Tuesday sought the immediate setting up of a committee of MPs to study the crisis-ridden agrarian sector and farmers' suicides and asked the government to substantially enhance investment in agriculture in the 12th Plan to meet the situation.

"Those advocating economic reforms should know that if Indian agricultural sector is not healthy, then the fundamentals of the Indian economy cannot improve. No amount of reforms will help," senior CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury told reporters here.

Referring to instances of farmers' suicide, he said there was a "vast difference" in the data on such cases supplied by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) and the state governments which "grossly underestimated" them.

"It is not a question of quibbling over figures but the reasons why such disturbing suicides have continued for so long," Yechury said, adding that the proposed MPs' Committee should visit affected areas like Vidarbha and Telangana, study the problems and submit its recommendations.

Noting that the Opposition "wrested" the decision to set up such a panel from the government in Rajya Sabha yesterday where Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar agreed to it, he said his party colleague Basudeb Acharia had approached Speaker Meira Kumar to have members of both the Houses in it.

Yechury said the Food Security Bill, which talks of providing "a mere three kgs of foodgrains per month per head" to the poor, was a "practical joke. Even if this Bill, in this truncated form, is adopted, the government will require much higher food stocks, for which food production and procurement will be needed".

He hoped that government would "wake up and seriously re-think the 12th Plan approach to substantially hike investments in agriculture" to meet the situation.