The food situation has been eluding solution for quite some time. We have had deficits for a long period, and we have had to import between three to five million tonnes of food grains each year. In a country with around 300 to 320 million acres of land under crop annually, and where at least 66% of the population is engaged in active agriculture, such a significant shortfall should not have occurred. This shortfall presents a challenge to us all. It is a challenge to the entire population, and it is also a challenge to leaders such as Shri Bhupesh Gupta and the patriotism of his party, as well as to those who argue that a scare should not be unnecessarily created. It is their bounden duty, as it is the duty of everyone, to assist in increasing agricultural production, particularly food production. This is not only a challenge to the Government but a challenge to the people as well. It is a test of our intelligence and the efficiency of our government departments. It is also a challenge to the patriotism of the people, who must rise to meet this issue. After all, you cannot go on continuing imports from foreign countries for a long time. Imports may not be always to our disadvantage, as I am going to show, as the House knows PL 480 is not entirely to our disadvantage because those PL 480 funds are used or deposited within the country and are used to our benefit on a corresponding amount being deposited by the Government although in the food account they are a debit for the country, they are an asset because they got spent for the use of the country for libraries for universities and for other things so in that way it has not been a disadvantage but the very fact that we import food grains is a challenge to us which challenge must be met. There was in 1989, I think, a Ford Foundation team which went into this, they called it a crisis, a food crisis in India, the Indian food crisis, and they submitted a report, they say that freedom for India does not count much if there is no freedom for food, if people do not have their food they do not value their freedom as the House knows the Prime Minister sent out a circular to all the States two or three years ago requesting that the portfolio of agriculture in the States should not be neglected, it should be entrusted to an important Minister, I think the National Development Council considered this question and they said that as far as possible the Chief Ministers in the States should handle the portfolio themselves and then they have started a food production board in the Cabinet itself at the Centre and the National Development Council has decided that an agricultural production board should be started in each State with the Chief Minister as the Chairman and an agricultural production coordination committee or board should be started in each State with the Chief Secretary as the Chairman, they have started an agricultural machinery board for supplying machinery, they have taken many steps in addition to the normal measures, the Government have been doing their very best in this regard but with all that has not kept up with the targets in the first two or three years of the Tenth Plan and we doubt very much whether the progress and achievement of the Ninth Plan could be kept up in the Tenth Plan as well unless earnest and vigorous attempts are made, I wish to throw out my own suggestions in this regard, they may not be very pleasant but I wish to be excused because I am speaking from experience. Madam, the first thing is that so far as the producing agency is concerned, its voluntary interest and its enthusiasm must be one, for instance in industrial labor relations we go out of the way to invite labor and give it even participation in the management and to do everything for labor, this is just to see that the industrial relations are good and the industrial output will be increasing day by day, should we not show some consideration for this producing agency namely the farmer? Mr. Thomas has shown how agricultural products even today even at these increased prices are not paying to the agriculturist, he has shown that very correctly and everyone who has intimate connection with agriculture at least will agree to that and if at all anything that is an underestimate not an overestimate when that is so how can we expect the farmer to produce unless he is enthused? Madam, in the nation's councils the farmer is nobody, the Planning Commission has nobody to assist it in this regard, one who can bring to bear practical experience of rural conditions and of agricultural conditions on the deliberations of the Commission, the recommendations of such reports are often not effectively incorporated into the very heart of the decision making process that deals with the practicalities of agricultural development, and in this disconnection lies the key challenge we continue to face, the challenge that we must address head on if we are to overcome these food crises and ultimately achieve self reliance in this vital sector.