Centre asks Ch’garh to exploit more ground water for irrigation

“Chhattisgarh is not able to exploit its ground water more than 20 per cent, although it is available in abundance,” Union Water Resources Secretary Dr Amarjeet Singh told a high level meeting on irrigation here attended by Chief Minister Dr Raman Singh and his Irrigation Minister Brij Mohan Agrawal among others.

The Central Secretary asked the state to find ways how to use more and more ground water for irrigation, and stressed for better implementation of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana (Prime Minister Irrigation Scheme) in the targeted eleven districts of Chhattisgarh, where the percentage of irrigation is very low and said through NREGS and other schemes the irrigation potential should be augmented by the state.

Chhattisgarh government has constructed scores of barrages and anicuts to increase the irrigation potential in the state, which is known as a rice bowl of the country, CM Dr Raman Singh told the meeting on Thursday adding with the stop dams the ground water table has not only been recharged but also increased.

“Also to increase irrigation percentage the state government has set the target of distributing 50,000 solar energized irrigation pumps in the next three years to farmers in a highly subsidized price,” the Chief Minister said. This year 10,000 pumps would be distributed where as 20,000 each would be distributed in the next two years to increase the irrigation percentage, he added.

Singh also asked the state officials to prepare special working plans for the districts, where the irrigation percentage is less than ten per cent.

The Chief Minister has stated that the current irrigation percentage of the state is about 35 per cent and with this year’s budget allocation of Rs 2564 crore it is expected that the irrigation percentage would increase by another 1.5 per cent.

Due to lesser percentage of irrigated land, farmers in many parts of the Chhattisgarh are depending on mono crop pattern and paddy was their only choice. Had there been a network of canals, the possibility of a change in crop pattern is immense and there is also a greater scope for oilseeds and pulses in the state, besides floriculture and horticulture, many agriculture scientists said.