NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said his government has given rural India a "new deal" and the growth rate in agriculture is nearly double than that of the NDA rule.

"One of the important contributions of the UPA government in the past four years has been to lay the foundation of a new era of development for rural India," Singh said releasing a book containing NCP leader Sharad Pawar's speeches and interviews.

Singh paid glowing tributes to Pawar whom he described as "my esteemed colleague and dear friend" whose leadership in the Agriculture Ministry has achieved a farm growth rate of 4.7 per cent, nearly double than that during the NDA rule.

The book titled "Fast Forward" has been edited by noted journalist Aroon Tikekar and has a foreword by the Prime Minister. The book contains an interview of Pawar as also his speeches concerning India and his home state Maharashtra.

The function was attended by several union ministers and Maharashtra ministers, SP leader Amar Singh, former J and K Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, industrialists Vijay Mallya and Rahul Bajaj and BJP leader Rajiv Pratap Rudy.

Lauding the "Baramati pattern" of development, Singh said "if we can replicate the Baramati experience across the country and improve upon it, then we would be in a position to wipe out poverty... To take the country to greater heights of development".

Hailing Pawar as an "outstanding representative of the bridge between India and Bharat", he said the country needed more such political leaders whose feet were firmly on the ground and whose mind looks ahead and is open to new ideas, new challenges and new opportunities.

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