Hry CM announces to increase area under direct seeding of paddy to about 2 lakh acre
Chandigarh: Moving towards water conservation, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday announced that the area under direct seeding of paddy has been increased by 275 per cent from 73,000 acres to nearly 2 lakh acres.
“This will save 218 MCM of water. For this, provision will be made for availability of machinery and subsidy,” he added.
Apart from this, the Chief Minister also announced that more than 9,500 water sources would be renovated in the next two years; which include 5,308 ponds, 63 check dams, 81 shallow tubewells and 4,000 recharge borewells.
The Chief Minister was speaking at the concluding session of the two-day ‘Water Conclave’ organised by the Haryana Water Resources Authority under Amrit Jal Kranti at Panchkula.
He said that the area under natural farming will be increased by more than 300 per cent, i.e., from 6,000 acres to 25,000 acres. This effort will not only save water but also improve soil health, said Khattar.
The Chief Minister said that the state government has set a target of reclamation of 1 lakh acres of saline land in brackish water areas. “To expedite the work and to achieve this target, the Agriculture Department will work closely with the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute and finalize its action plan in the next three months. Machines will also be made available for this work and if provision of subsidy has to be made, that too will be done,” he asserted.
Khattar said that the World Bank has given in-principle approval for the expansion of the Atal Bhujal Yojana to 14 districts of the state. In the first phase, a budget of 700 crores was received under the five-year plan. In the second phase also, a budget of about Rs 700 crore will be made available by the World Bank. This will cover 90 per cent of the waterlogged area of the state, he added.
The Chief Minister said that in the next two years, 50 per cent of the demand for water in the agriculture sector would be met by the treated wastewater of STPs. In addition, the water of 75 STPs will be used for agricultural needs; besides 100 per cent of the treated wastewater will be reused in 18 out of 31 HSIIDC estates in the next two years,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that there is a major use of water in the industry sector also, and the state government has made a special plan under which Zero Liquid Discharge (ZLD) will be implemented in IMT Sohna, IMT Kharkhoda and Global City Gurugram. He said that the area under fisheries will also be increased. Presently fish farming is being done on 2,500 acres, which has been targeted to be increased.
Khattar said that the Energy Department would prepare DPRs of projects for the reuse of treated wastewater in Yamunanagar, Panipat, Hisar and Jhajjar power plants in the next three months.
