Madhya Pradesh will be the second State in the country to have an exclusive ‘agriculture budget' in addition to the general budget, which is presented annually in the Assembly.

The only other State in the country to have such a budget is Karnataka, which presented the first such budget in February this year.

“We will be presenting an exclusive budget dedicated to agriculture. The step is being taken as the State has seen some record production of wheat in recent times and also it has a large agrarian population,” the Chief Minister, Mr Shivraj Singh Chouhan, said.

“The agriculture budget will focus on all the branches related to the farmland as horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries, panchayats and forestry.

“The intention of such a budget is to focus on development schemes related to irrigation, power supply for farming and supply of fertilisers and other goods to the farmers,” Mr Chouhan said.

The budget will be prepared in consultation with all the stakeholders involved in agriculture, he said.

Mr Chouhan was in the Capital recently to meet Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to apprise him about the lack of storage facilities for wheat in the State.

The Chief Minister informed the Prime Minister that the State had procured 49.4 lakh tonnes of wheat till now. He said although this was a good development, most of the wheat was lying in the open and if this was not stored before the onset of monsoon, it would rot.

Mr Chouhan urged the Prime Minister on June 11 to advance allocate the quota of foodgrains for the next year as this would solve the storage problem. The government also proposes to distribute it to the Below Poverty Line families at the rate of Rs 3 a kg.

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