Dr Gulati elaborated the link between agriculture growth and poverty reduction in national and international contexts. He opined that higher growth rate in agriculture leads to faster rate of poverty reduction. Comparing nation’s economy with a pyramid, Dr Gulati suggested putting agriculture sector at the base, manufacturing at the middle and service sector at the top the pyramid. Such an approach, he maintained would lead to sustainable development.
He suggested that though Agriculture is a State subject, yet Central Govt need to trigger and engineer the reform agenda in agriculture sector. Dr Gulati cited the example of the impact of centrally engineered Green and White revolution on Indian economy and strongly advocated for centrally sponsored active agenda for reform in this basic sector of the economy that cater to the food and nutrition security. He opined that the Indian agriculture has the potential to grow at 5% per annum in the present context against which the present growth rate varied from 3.6% to 4% per annum in real terms.
Coming to Odishan context, Dr Gulati pointed to frequent natural calamities and erratic rains as main factors responsible for slow agricultural growth rate in the State. He suggested to focus on infrastructural development like irrigation, rural roads, more power to agriculture sector and establishment of value chain for cereal and fruit-products in the State for achieving higher growth rate in agriculture.
The Development Commissioner Sri R. Balakrishnan introduced Dr Gulati in the lecture series and gave a key note address on the objectives of OKH. While replying to a media quarry after the meeting, he said that this lecture series has been launched to update the State functionaries with the newly emerging ideas and best practices at the national and international levels in the matters of public policy and developmental administration.
The Minister Finance Sri Pradip Kumar Amat, Minister Agriculture Sri Pradeep Maharathy, Minister Panchayati Raj Dr Arun Kumar Sahoo, Minister IT Sri Pranab Prakash Das, Minister Planning & Convergence Smt Usha Devi, Minister ST & SC Development Sri Lal Bihari Himirika, Chief Secretary Sri Aditya Prasad Padhi , Principal Secretaries and Secretaries of various departments along with agriculture experts from RBI, NABARD, State Bank of India, NCIRD participated in the deliberations.
Keeping in view the growing popularity of the programme, arrangements were made to extend the programme to all districts and conference hall of revenue & disaster management department of the secretariat through video conference for enabling more state and district level officers to participate in it. Minister, Agriculture Sri Maharathy presented a memento to the Resource Person Padmashri Dr. Gulati as a mark of love and respect.