Kolkata: Funds for the Centre's proposed second green revolution in the eastern states would not be a problem if the state governments submitted their proposals, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Sunday. "We allotted Rs 300 crore (for the programme) in the first year and another Rs 300 crore in the second year. But it is not a question of money, it is a question of availability of projects," Mukherjee said at the 111th annual general meeting of the Bharat Chamber of Commerce (BCC).
During several round of meetings with the chief ministers of the states concerned, he said, he had appealed to them to submit project proposals for the programme.
"I told them, please formulate the projects and the necessary funds will be provided."
Noting that rural infrastructure and cold chains needed to be developed and modern technology injected to increase the shelf life of agricultural products, he said price difference between farm grains and edible grains had to be minimised in order to make the programme successful.
"But for this, the state governments concerned will have to take appropriate initiatives because implementation of the programme essentially lies with them," he said.
Observing that there was a huge gap in infrastructure requirement, he said while the investment in that sector during the 11th plan period stood at USD 565 million, the investment requirement under the 12th plan will be USD 1 trillion.
Stating that one third of the investment will come from the private sector, he said that to facilitate the inflow of investments from the private sector the government had announced tax incentives and both the RBI and SEBI were formulating guidelines to make funds operational through mutual funds and NBFCs.
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