Nabard sanctions loans worth Rs 35,322 crore under Irrigation Fund

NEW DELHI: National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development ( Nabard) on Monday noted that so far it has sanctioned loans worth Rs 35,322 crore under Long Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF). Announced in Budget 2016 -17, LTIF was set up with an initial corpus of Rs 20,000 crore.

The cabinet has identified 99 incomplete irrigation projects for funding in 18 states with a potential irrigation of 76 lakh hectares. The bank, however, has disbursed Rs 5,200 crore under the scheme.

In a statement, Nabard said that finance minister Arun Jaitley noted that while in the last six decades the cumulative area brought under irrigation was only 65 million hectare, under this initiative, additional 11.7% area would be brought under irrigation in a short span of four years.

“This is one of the major interventions to ensure doubling of farmers’ income by 2022 under the ambitious Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY),” he said.

Minister of water resources, river development and ganga rejuvenation Uma Bharti appealed to other states to complete necessary formalities and avail loans under this facility.

She noted that this initiative will not only bridge the gap between irrigation potential created and irrigation potential utilized, but due to addition of command area development component, it would also be ensured that scarce water resource is utilized very efficiently.

Loans have been sanctioned to Gujarat (Rs 3,611 crore) and Maharashtra (Rs 7,242 crores). NABARD also handed over the sanction letter for Rs 2,981 crore to National Water Development Agency (NWDA) under the ministry of water resources.

According to Nabard, the total fund requirement under the scheme is Rs 77,595 crore for four years of which the share of the central government is Rs 31,343 crore and that of states is Rs 46,253 crore.

Harsh Kumar Bhanwala, chairman, Nabard said that this will be achieved very quickly only because of mission mode approach, rigorous monitoring and excellent co-ordination among all concerned ministries and NITI Aayog.