PATNA: Deputy CM Sushil Kumar Modi on Friday said the state government was at work to provide infrastructural and institutional support to farmers so that they could tap the economic benefits of the relative strength of their districts in agricultural produce.In recent years, he said, Vaishali, Samastipur, Nalanda, Begusarai and Patna districts have excelled in vegetable production as a result of which the state has become the country’s second largest producer of vegetables.Similarly, the state has done well in paddy cultivation and, as such, the government has asked PACS to use dryers to increase the dryness of paddy and procure paddy from farmers from November itself, Modi said. “This will help even small farmers get better returns on paddy as they will not be forced to make distress sale of their produce,” he said.Modi said this while delivering his key-note address at a seminar on ‘Pathways towards prosperity of aspirational districts’, organised in Patna by the Bihar Institute of Economic Studies.As for the five districts which have excelled in vegetable cultivation, Modi said, cooperative societies of vegetable cultivators have been formed in 83 blocks. They will be linked with their cooperative federation that will function on the pattern of Sudha Dairy and provide storage facility to preserve the produce for marketing.He said 1,312 separate agriculture electricity feeders would be created for irrigation purposes, which would reduce farmers’ dependence on diesel. It will also cut the irrigation cost from Rs 1,500 to Rs 200 per acre.Modi said the road connectivity in rural areas had been strengthened by constructing 68,726km of roads at a cost of Rs 35,630 crore under the PM Gram Sadak Yojana. Further, 60,000km of roads will be constructed over the next five years to give connectivity to ‘tolas’ under CM Tola Sampark Yojana and CM Gram Sampark Yojana.

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