New Delhi, April 25: Total food production in 2018-19 will be 283.7 million tonnes, including 113 million tonnes of rice, Union Agriculture Ministry said on Wednesday.

Owing to signs of normal and favourable monsoon, foodgrain production during the kharif season is expected to be 140.2 million tonnes while it would be about 142.5 million tonnes during the rabi season as per the tentative targets, Agriculture Commissioner S.K. Malhotra said at the Kharif Conference here.

Paddy production would be around 113 million tonnes in 2018-19 including 98 tonnes during Kharif season. The ministry has targeted 100 million tonnes of wheat production this year.

As per the targets, pulses production is expected to be 24 million tonnes while oilseeds production would be 36 million tonnes.

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ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.

“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.

The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.

“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.

Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.

There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.