India urged to focus on farming

India must focus more on its agricultural sector in order to sustain long-term economic growth, a leading industrialist has said.

Bharti Group boss Sunil Bharti Mittal called for "serious intervention".

He said the government, private sector and foreign investors all needed to play their part if they wanted to see India's economy grow at the same rate.

"Without agriculture, India cannot move forward," said Mr Mittal in an exclusive interview with the BBC.

'Change needed'

Mr Mittal said the biggest concern for the Indian economy today was not rising oil prices but the huge disparities that exist in India.

Some reform in this sector has meant that the country has gone from being unable to feed itself to being the world's largest producer of milk and second largest producer of fruit and vegetables.

Yet the average size of a farm is just four acres and at least 40% of the harvest is wasted.

"A significant policy change is needed in terms of land reforms, cold-chains, farming techniques, alternate cropping and so on,'' said Mr Mittal, who is a former president of the Confederation of Indian Industries.