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Updated November 16th, 2018 at 14:43 IST

Innovation in agriculture sector key to cutting wastage, boosting production: Suresh Prabhu

Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu on Friday said innovation in the agriculture sector was important for reducing wastage, increasing production, and cutting fertiliser use to enhance soil fertility.

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Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu on Friday said innovation in the agriculture sector was important for reducing wastage, increasing production, and cutting fertiliser use to enhance soil fertility.

He said that huge opportunities exist for startups in the agriculture sector to promote growth.

"We are promoting innovation in agriculture sector," he said adding that changing climate would pose serious challenges to the sector, and startups can look at these areas and come up with innovative solutions.

"Innovation and new ideas by startups can play a major role in the sector," the minister said.

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He also informed that the ministry will be holding a meeting of global funds and startups here on December 7.

"We are working on a comprehensive strategy to promote startups," he said.

On January 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled several incentives to boost startups, offering them a tax holiday, inspector raj-free regime and capital gains tax exemption as part of the startup action plan.

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Speaking at a different event, Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said the global investors' meet would see participation from top investors in order to pave the way for greater investments in Indian startups.

"The ministry is taking many initiatives to foster a positive and empowering ecosystem for startups to grow and flourish in the country. To this end, many regulations which were in place for traditional industries are now being reviewed or either scrapped or modified," he added.

He also said that efforts are now being made to ensure that India joins the group of countries in the top 50 in the World Bank's doing the business index.

Terming farm loan waiver and free power supply as mere "temporary and populist" steps, Vice-President Venkaiah Naidu on November 15 made a pitch for long-term solutions like infrastructure support and cheap credit to improve the agriculture sector.

Delivering the Laxmanrao Inamdar Memorial Lecture in Mumbai, Naidu also called for suitable changes in the laws governing the cooperative sector in view of changed techno-economic and business scenarios to make the cooperative institutions "viable and vibrant".

The University of Mumbai had organised the lecture to mark the birth centenary late Laxmanrao Inamdar, who was instrumental in the formation of Sahakar Bharati in 1979.

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Published November 16th, 2018 at 14:43 IST

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