State receives Best Foodgrain Award

State Agriculture Minister Pradeep Maharathi received the award from Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today at the national capital. The award carries a cash prize of Rs 2 crore, a trophy and a citation. The other two states which received Rs 2 crore award are Assam and Tripura.

Odisha got the award in the category of states with overall food grain production of between one and 10 million tonne. It may be mentioned here that Odisha had produced 7.3 million tonne food grain in the last fiscal.

The PM also honoured five states, including Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, for achieving high food grain production in 2010-11.

In addition, the PM also gave award of Rs 1 crore to different states in individual crop category.

While Chhattisgarh received the award for rice, Haryana for wheat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan for pulses and Karnataka for coarse cereal production.

Sharad Pawar, Union Minister of Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Ministers of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Shri Harish Rawat and Dr. Charan Das Mahant also addressed the function. Senior officers of the Ministry of Agriculture, ICAR and its institutes, Vice Chancellors of Central and State Agricultural Universities, officers of State agriculture departments attended the function.