Does India need more irrigation projects?
We do not have a water scarcity. But the issue of water management is important. We need to harvest water; use it more appropriately, use it more judiciously. Has India invested sufficiently in agriculture, or has it fallen behind China and other Asian nations? These countries are investing huge in agricultural research and also in agricultural development programs. In India, we [used to have] a huge surplus–if you go only six years back we used to have a huge buffer stock [of food grains]. [Unfortunately] we wanted to get rid of that buffer stock, either by subsidizing food or through many different social safety net programs. We started reducing poverty through these distribution programs, so investment in agriculture was reduced. And I would tell you that right now, this government has started increasing investment in agriculture, but it’s still lower than what it used to be in 1970, if we compare in terms of percentage of agricultural GDP. Why hasn’t India been able to boost agric
