Both manufacturing and services are expanding strongly, P. Chidambaram said in the country's high-tech hub, contributing to a record 9.4 percent rise in economic output during the financial year ended March.

"But we are concerned about the slow rate of growth in agriculture," he said at an annual gathering in Bangalore of biotechnology companies, noting India had turned from a food exporter to an importer.

Land under rice and wheat cultivation has remained stagnant in the past decade, he said, urging India's two billion dollar biotechnology industry to focus as much on devising better-yielding crop varieties as it does on drug research and discovery.

Agriculture contributes about a fifth of India's economic output but is a direct or indirect source of livelihood for two-thirds of its population.

Annual per capita food grain production declined from 207 kilograms (455 pounds) in 1995 to 186 kilos last year. The rate of agricultural growth fell from five percent in the mid-1980s to less than two percent in the past five years.