Pune: Vice-President M. Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday called for more pro-farmer policies and pointed out that loan waiver to farmers was not a permanent solution as it affects the agriculture sector and hurts cultivators.Speaking at a symposium on agricultural policies in Pune, the Vice-President said that the main challenge was to make agriculture economically viable."The solution lies in identifying the gaps in policy formulation with regard to the four Is -- irrigation, infrastructure, investment and insurance -- which need to be strengthened for development of the farm sector,” said Naidu after inaugurating the two-day national symposium on making agriculture sustainable at the Vaikunth Mehta National Institute of Cooperative Management here. The Vice-President also called for enhancing lab to land transfer of technologies and strengthening of marketing system for making agriculture economically sustainable."Reliable, real-time information is the key... e-NAM implementation needs to be further streamlined. The Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act needs to be amended by introducing a single-point levy of market fee across the state and a unified single trading licence," he added.Naidu, who later inaugurated the new administrative building of Pune Municipal Corporation, appealed to the elected members and civic officials to initiate a new work culture that will make it easier for citizens to avail civic services.However, the inauguration of the building was marred by reports of leakage of water from the dome and elsewhere. “Water had stagnated on the roof following heavy showers. This might have caused the leakage,” Shivaji Lanke, executive engineer, PMC, told TOI.(With inputs fromPrasad Kulkarni)

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