Bhubaneswar, April 16 (IANS) Scientists in Orissa Saturday claimed to have developed a new paddy variety for India's deepwater and rain-fed lowland areas that are handicapped by the absence of a good high-yielding variety of rice with good grain quality.

T.K. Adhya, director of the state-run Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) at Cuttack, 26 km from here, said the paddy variety developed at his institute is likely to be named as 'CR Dhan 500'.

The variety showed good yield advantage over the existing varieties of IR-64 and PR-106 for the deep water and rain-fed areas, he said.

"Deepwater area of the country is more than 1 million hectares," Adhya told IANS.

"Earlier varieties with a yield potential of less than two tonnes were grown in these localities and the present varieties would definitely provide a quantum jump in productivity," he said.

The new variety has been cleared recently by the variety identification committee of the All India Coordinated Rice Improvement Project (AICRIP).

The proposal for release of the variety will now be placed before the seeds sub-committee of the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE) for notification, he said.

Adhya said farmers are likely to get the seeds for cultivation by the Kharif season of 2013.