Allow FDI For Development Of ‘Panchyat’, Says Dr. Joshi.

New Delhi: The Rural Development Minister Dr C.P. Joshi, has advocated allowing FDI for developing over 2.44 lakh panchayati all over the country will open the vistas of opportunities and ensure inclusive growth.

Inaugurating ASSOCHAM International conference on ` Rural India – Potential Hub for FDI ” here today, Dr Joshi said that FDI will allowed in all the activities particularly agriculture, food processing in all these sectors that will contribute the agriculture growth of the country, FDI being allowed in to rural areas also.

Dr. Joshi also disclosed that the micro finance institutions are getting the needs of the rural people who are residing in the far flung areas.  The ministry are stressing on Self Help Group (SHG) to have more accessibility to bank activities. He also mentioned storing facilities particularly in north-east; the government has come out with some schemes and ministry will able to address shortfall in the storage.

The potential for private investment including FDI in rural areas has remained untapped for far too long. About 19% of rural households lived in katcha structures and about 50% lived in pucca structures. The reaming 31% of rural households lived in semi-pucca structures. The central government has launched certain key programmes which aim at overcoming the physical and social infrastructure problems faced in the rural development. 11th five year plan has estimated shortage of a total 73.96 million housing units, of which 47.43 million unites pertain to rural housing alone. This is an area where private investment would be most valuable, said Dr. Joshi.

He also emphasized that India’s strong agricultural base and accelerating economic growth holds a significant potential for the food processing industry that provides a strong link between agriculture and consumers. In addition to FDI in the food processing industry there is huge requirement for support infrastructure FDI could play a major role.

“The National Ruaral Livelihood Mission (NRLM) will enable youth to enhance their skills and be placed in jobs in semi urban and urban growth centers. The plan is to reach out to million youth in 7 years. NRLM will forge partnership with industry, educational institutions, civil society organizations, and other resource organizations” said Dr. Joshi.

Dr. Arvind Mayaram, Additional Secretary & FA Department of Rural Development Raj also mentioned some specific sectors that have great potential for attracting FDI and in turn benefiting rural economy greatly by promoting FDI in rural retail chains, producers would benefit immensely from not only higher prices but also from improved logistics and infrastructure and growth of allied industry such as the technology driven packaging and grading industry.

Dr. Mayaram also highlighted the potential of benefiting from FDI in the rural areas is the agri business value chain, including agriculture marketing infrastructure. FDI would be most desirable is the creation of additional food storage capacity in the country. He indicates that there are 65miliion tones (MT) of food buffer stocks but the total warehousing capacity in the country is only 40MT, leaving a storage deficit of 25MT. Investment of 10-15,000 crore is required to provide the additional storage capacity. So, there is also an urgent need to induct state of the art technologies in this sector.

Among others, who spoke on the occasion comprised, Dr. Pronab Sen, Principal Adviser, Planning Commission, Mr. Anil K Agarwal, Past President, ASSOCHAM, Mr. S. K. Jindal, Chairman, Investment & Investors’ Protection Committee, ASSOCHAM and Mr. S.C. Aggarwal, Co-Chairperson, ASSOCHAM National Committee on Capital Markets & CMD, SMC Global Securities Ltd.

Source : orissadiary.com