PMO charts out plans for development issues

Among the proposals is an ambitious plan for agriculture which visualises formulation of model legislations which would enable contract farming or what vcan be called corporatisation of Indian agriculture. This could be possible through allowing joint stock companies in agriculture based on land equity and lease of wasteland for cropping and afforestation. With an eye on doubling the food production by 2010, there are plans of a major overhaul of agriculture.

The PMO’s group, including Cabinet Secretary Kamal Pande and Economic Adviser to the PM Dr S. Narayan, is likely to discuss modalities of a new system to replace the existing MSP system to encourage crop diversification and cost efficient agriculture production and move away from an agriculture completely focused on wheat and rice farming.

With an eye on its reformist label, a new policy on subsidies is also on the anvil which will take a fresh look at fertiliser subsidies and whether they really benefit farmers as also food subsidies which though meant for the poor, has so many leakages that very often the system leads to black marketing of subsidised foodgrains.

But if you thought that the agenda was entirely directed towards elections in the not-so-distant-future, there is an ambitious plan for an Action Plan of e-governance. This could mean systems where machine-readable identity cards would be provided to citizens allowing linkages to several services like banks, driving licences, election identifications etc.

And to counter foul play in an IT-savvy society, also on the agenda will be the setting up of a National Information Security Group (NISG) which design the ways in which to monitor e-mails, SMS and other types of communications to take care of the security issues.