The Water Resources department has also claimed that the total irrigation potential has increased to 52.5 lakh ha (as of June 30) from 48 lakh ha in 2014; which is an over 9 per cent increase. (Express photo)The state’s irrigated land area has increased by 23 per cent during the last five years, according to the Maharashtra government.
According to the latest statistics compiled by the state’s Water Resources department, the total irrigated area in the state is now 40 lakh hectares (ha) as of June 30. In October 2014, when the Devendra Fadnavis government took over the reins of the state, the same was 32.5 lakh ha, claimed Iqbal Singh Chahal, Principal Secretary, Water Resources department.
In the 2014 Assembly polls, a controversy over the actual irrigated potential utilised had rocked the then Congress-Nationalist Congress Party government, with allegations of irregularities and wrongdoing raised against senior NCP ministers. The Economic Survey Report of 2011-12 had also rapped the previous government for “poor development in irrigation potential” claiming that a total investment of Rs 72,000 crore had led to a mere 0.1 per cent increase in the cropped irrigated area.
Focus on ongoing projects pays dividends
Just as the debate rages on why Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has failed to walk the talk and take action against politicians who were accused by the BJP itself of wrongdoing in irrigation projects taken up during the past regime, his government has focussed on completion of last-mile projects and fast-tracking the construction of canals and sub-canals to ensure more farm area is brought under irrigation. Instead of planning new projects, it has focussed on commissioning of ongoing projects, which appears to be paying dividends. While the agrarian crisis will be the Opposition’s main plank in the state polls, the government will counter this by claiming it has achieved much more in the irrigation sector than the previous regime.
Now just ahead of the 2019 Assembly polls, the Devendra Fadnavis government has come out with statistics regarding increase in the irrigated land area and additional irrigation potential created. At a time when back-to-back drought spells have deepened the agrarian crisis in the state, BJP sources confirmed that it plans to project the increase in irrigated area as a major achievement of the government.
The Water Resources department has also claimed that the total irrigation potential has increased to 52.5 lakh ha (as of June 30) from 48 lakh ha in 2014; which is an over 9 per cent increase. Irrigation potential created is the total farm area which can be irrigated from dam projects on their full utilisation. In other words, the state government has claimed to have created new potential to irrigate an additional 4.57 lakh hectare land in the last five years, which it further claimed was 206 per cent more than that the additional potential created between 2009-2014, when the Congress-NCP was in power. “Between 2009-2014, the additional IP created was 2.22 lakh hectare,” said Chahal.
Maharashtra has a total cultivable land area of 225 lakh ha. According to official studies, the maximum surface irrigation potential that can be achieved is 85 lakh ha. The department has also claimed another 17 lakh hectare farm area was being served by indirect irrigation by wells in the command area. Incidentally, the state’s agriculture department is opposed to inclusion of area under irrigation by wells in the cropped irrigated area statistics. In 2014, a high-level committee comprising representatives from both the departments and the revenue department was formed to resolve the difference.
Sources confirmed that the committee is yet to submit its report in this regard. Public sector investment in the irrigation sector has been the focal point of the state budgets in the past five years. The government claims to have invested Rs 40,000 crore on capital works in the sector. “Our focus was on completion of long pending last mile project and finishing of the water distribution networks so that the stored dam waters can reach the farm. In 2014, there were 359 pending irrigation projects. We have so far completed 144 among these. Another 40 will be commissioned before the year-end,” said Chahal. Eleven out of 26 major irrigation projects being implemented under Narendra Modi’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana have also completed. “When all of them are completed, an additional potential of 5.56 lakh ha will be created,” an official said.
Chahal also listed key policy initiatives taken by the government to fast track land acquisition, laying of the distribution network and clearance to dam projects.
