"Despite National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) estimates that 53 per cent of workers are engaged in agricultural sector, its contribution to GDP rate has fallen in relation to industrial and service sectors.
"The Union government is committed to ensure that agriculture sector records high growth so that it contributes to inclusive growth," Kharge said after giving the V V Giri Memorial Award 2011.
Kharge conferred the award on Utsa Patnaik, former Professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University.
"The award is in recognition of her contribution in understanding issues related to agrarian relations and rural labour," the minister said.
"In the Approach Paper to the 12th Five Year Plan, emphasis has been laid on redoubling efforts to ensure 4 per cent average growth in agriculture," he said.
Inequitable distribution of land, Kharge said, was responsible for low productivity and low income levels among agricultural workers.
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"The government has taken a number of steps like interest subvention to those farmers who repaid their short-term crop loans as per schedule, Kisan Credit Cards, revival package for short-term cooperative credit structure to ensure additional flow of agricultural credit to small and marginal farmers," he said, while enlisting the initiatives taken by the UPA government for farmers.
Patnaik said, "Large labour surplus countries like India and China can never replicate the development trajectory of the industrial pioneers because their peasants and workers when displaced have nowhere to go. Their livelihood problems have to be solved internally in a planned manner."
The V V Giri Memorial Award was constituted in 2008 by the V V Giri National Labour Institute, an autonomous body of the Ministry of Labour and Employment.