Long Term Irrigation Fund to be Raised
In a move that aims to address the perennial
irrigation water crisis affecting rural India, Ministry of Water Resources,
River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and NABARD signed an agreement to
operationalise the Long Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF) to be instituted in NABARD
as part of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY).
- The agreement aims to complete the 99 prioritized irrigation projects as part of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY).
- The loans from NABARD will be provided at 6% interest rate for a period of 15 years. The Water Users associations will be formed for participatory management of the projects.
Key facts:
- The Fund, with an initial corpus of about Rs 20,000 crore, was announced in the Union Budget 2016-17 by Finance Minister.
- Corpus would be raised by way of budgetary resources and market borrowings to fund fast tracking of implementation of incomplete major & medium irrigation projects.
About PMKSY:
PMKSY has been conceived amalgamating ongoing
schemes viz. Accelerated Irrigation Benefit Programme (AIBP) of the Ministry of
Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation (MoWR,RD&GR),
Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) of Department of Land
Resources (DoLR) and the On Farm Water Management (OFWM) of Department of
Agriculture and Cooperation (DAC).
- The scheme will be implemented by Ministries of Agriculture, Water Resources and Rural Development.
- The major objective of PMKSY is to achieve convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level, expand cultivable area under assured irrigation, improve on-farm water use efficiency to reduce wastage of water and enhance the adoption of precision-irrigation and other water saving technologies (More crop per drop).
Other details:
- Programme architecture of PMKSY will be to adopt a ‘decentralized State level planning and projectised execution’ structure that will allow States to draw up their own irrigation development plans based on District Irrigation Plan (DIP) and State Irrigation Plan (SIP).
- It will be operative as convergence platform for all water sector activities including drinking water & sanitation, MGNREGA, application of science & technology etc. through comprehensive plan.
- State Level Sanctioning Committee (SLSC) chaired by the Chief Secretary of the State will be vested with the authority to oversee its implementation and sanction projects.
- The programme will be supervised and monitored by an Inter-Ministerial National Steering Committee (NSC) will be constituted under the Chairmanship of Prime Minister with Union Ministers from concerned Ministries.
- A National Executive Committee (NEC) will be constituted under the Chairmanship of Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog to oversee programme implementation, allocation of resources, inter ministerial coordination, monitoring & performance assessment, addressing administrative issues etc.
