Irrigation plan for Odisha's Nabarangpur district

BHUBANESWAR: In a bid to increase the irrigation potential of Nabarangpur district, the State Government on Thursday decided to set up 28 new lift irrigation projects and 3,897 deep bore wells during the current financial. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik here.

With only 25 per cent of the total crop area of 2.69 lakh hectares covered under assured irrigation, the Chief Minister directed the Water Resources Department to complete the ongoing irrigation projects  expeditiously and revive the defunct lift irrigation (LI) points. As many as 79 LI points are lying defunct in the tribal dominated district.

The Chief Minister who reviewed the irrigation programme of the district asked the department to take immediate measures to provide electricity connection to those LI points remained nonfunctional due to lack of power. Of the 957 LI points in the district, 859 points are functional while 98 points are lying defunct.

Official sources said only 64,769 hectares out of the total cropped area of 2.69 lakh hectares have assured irrigation. Only 4 out of 10 blocks have irrigation potential of more than 35 per cent of the cropped area while the  percentage of irrigation in six blocks ranges from 11 pc to 27 pc. The four blocks having better irrigation facilities are Nandahandi, Nabarangpur, Kosagumuda and Chandahandi.