Mr. Deputy Speaker Sir, I express my gratitude to the hon. Members for expressing their views regarding the demands for grants for the year 2009-10 for the Ministry of Agriculture. It is a matter of gratification that most of the hon. Members have appreciated and have expressed their satisfaction regarding the working, the achievements and few planning of the Ministry of Agriculture. In the Budget for 2008-09 the Plan outlay for 2008-09 had been fixed at Rs. 07,000 crores whereas for this year it has been raised to Rs. 80,000 crores which is definitely more than the amount of the previous year. In this connection the hon. Members have made a mention of a number of schemes. They have demanded special programmes to be introduced in their respective areas. Provisions have been made in this Budget. This Budget provides for assistance for land reforms for the distribution of fertilizers assistance to farmers or for increasing oil seeds production. I want to draw the attention of this esteemed House to certain points which have not been discussed so far. Last year the hon. Prime Minister introduced a special food grains programme in the year 2008-09 for increasing agricultural productivity and total agricultural production after making a mid-term appraisal of the 10th Five Year Plan. There are 14 main food grains producing States in the country out of which 169 districts have been selected for it. Just now the hon. Member from Kerala was saying that no such programme has been introduced in his State. I want to inform him that this programme has been introduced only in the main districts of the major food grains producing States because it was a special food grains programme as is clear from its name and the esteemed House will agree with me that this year we have achieved a record production. The food grains production is more than 17 crores tonnes this year. This is a land mark in the history of this country. But we should not be satisfied with this achievement we are going to formulate schemes for further increase in the food grains production during the coming three years. Therefore, for the year 2010-11 the target for increasing the production of wheat and rice has been fixed at 5 million tonnes. Our department has already started taking steps in his regard and I can say that we will be able to achieve the target fixed. I would like to make a brief mention of the major aspects of this year’s Budget. Several hon. Members have expressed their views in the matter. Firstly, the percentage of bank loans in the agriculture sector is being increased from 17 per cent to 18 per cent. An additional amount of Rs. 4,000 crores will be given as loans. The rate of interest has been reduced from 14 per cent to 12 per cent.