India: 11th Plan rice output target fixed at 115 Mil MT

With estimates putting the country's rice requirements at 120 million tonnes (mt) by 2020, plans are afoot to reach that well before that year. As against the production of 92.8 mt in 2006-07, the concluding year of the 10th Plan, the first year of the new Plan (2007-08) is targeted to achieve 97.43 mt.

The subsequent years in the Plan, too, are expected to add more than 4 mt each and touch 114.86 mt in 2011-12, the last year in the Plan. Production of rice had gone up to 92.8 mt in 2006-07 from 82.54 mt in 1997-98. The trend showed ups and downs in the last 10 years. The production levels shot up to 93.34 mt in 2001-02 as against 84.98 mt in 2000-01. But it plummeted to 71.82 mt a year later. The following year, however, it stood at 88.53 mt.