Patna, Oct. 28: The state government has once again failed to keep its date for holding the third meeting of the agriculture cabinet.

During the official briefing of the second agriculture cabinet meet on August 12, it was said that the third meeting would be held in the first week of October.

With October ending in four days and government offices scheduled to remain closed till November 2, it now looks almost impossible to hold the meeting this month. Considering the fact that chief minister Nitish Kumar would embark on his Sewa Yatra from November 9, it is to be seen whether or not the state government would be able to find a convenient date for holding the third meeting.

The state government had failed to organise the second meeting of agriculture cabinet on the announced date as well. After the first meeting of the cabinet on April 26, it was announced that the second meeting would take place on June 15, but it took place on August 12. The delay assumes significance because there are talks of launching a second green revolution in the country from the state and separate meetings of the cabinet have been projected by the Nitish government as a move in this direction. The government has tried to project the cabinet as a vehicle using which specific decisions would be taken for the development of the agriculture sector.

Moreover, the delay in holding the third meet would force the state government to postpone the date of meeting with stakeholders after which the second roadmap for the agriculture sector has to be made.

After the second meeting of the cabinet, it was decided the said consultative process with the stakeholders would be held towards end-October.

Making light of the delay, agriculture minister Narendra Singh said: “One cannot call this a delay. The agriculture department has submitted reports of all the committees and the chief minister would fix a date for the third meeting after going through these reports.” He added that going through such reports was a time-consuming job and the government was doing the necessary homework before convening the third meeting.

As many as 14 committees — water management, co-operatives, agriculture production, animal resources, fishery, land resources, energy, road connectivity, research, education, information technology and biotechnology, marketing, storage and food processing, role of panchayats, ecology, environment and social forestry, disaster management, investment, capital and credit flow — were set up after the first meeting. The purpose of setting up these committees was to prepare reports on different aspects for ushering in comprehensive development of the agriculture sector.

Only three — agriculture production, animal resources and fisheries — were earlier supposed to submit reports by June 15, but submitted reports when the second agriculture cabinet meeting was held.

On the issue of holding meetings with stakeholders, Singh said the outcome of this process was to be used as an input for the second roadmap of agriculture sector, the period of which would start from April 2012, hence talks of delay didn’t hold much logic at this juncture.

“The agriculture sector is one of the top priorities of the state government and we would ensure that the consultative process is held at a time that would allow enough time for charting out details of the second roadmap for the agriculture sector,” Singh said.

The first roadmap for agriculture sector was chalked out in 2008 and its period would be coming to an end in March 2012. Some of the major achievements made after formulation of the first roadmap are implementation of accelerated seed extension programme, increase in plan expenditure for agriculture sector, promotion of horticulture and organic farming.