GUWAHATI: State Agriculture Minister Nilamoni Sen Deka has requested Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar to enhance the subsidy to at least 50 per cent for hybrid rice, high yielding varieties of paddy and pulse seeds under the scheme like National Food Security Mission (NFSM) as the Centre has been providing only Rs 20 for per kg of hybrid seeds, Rs 5 for high yielding paddy seeds and Rs 12 for pulse seeds. Participating at a high level meeting on ‘Bringing Green Revolution to Eastern India’ held in Kolkata on Wednesday, Deka said, “As more than 85 per cent of farmers of the State are small and marginal and can’t afford to go for costly technology with their own resources, it is difficult to improve crop production in the State. The Central government should cover all the districts of the State under NFSM-Rice and NFSM-Pulse schemes.” Addressing the meeting, Deka said two devastating floods during June this year have damaged 2.54 lakh hectares of crop area in the State. “The State government has taken up compensatory programme with financial grant of Rs 55.77 crore to give some relief to the affected farmers,” he said. He said the recent ethnic violence affected the agricultural activities in three BTAD districts. He further said the State Agriculture Department has set a target to produce 75 lakh MT of rice by the end of the 12th Plan period.