BHUBANESWAR: The State Government will spend Rs 10,000 crore during next five years to create additional irrigation potential for the benefit of farmers.
Announcing this while inaugurating the Parbati Giri Mega Lift Irrigation Project through video conferencing from the State Secretariat here on Saturday, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik said irrigation has always remained a focus area of the Government. Referring to the promise to create irrigation potential for 10 lakh hectares (ha) land by 2019, he claimed that irrigation has so far been provided to seven lakh ha. Irrigation will be provided to the rest three lakh ha through different schemes soon, he said.
The Chief Minister also inaugurated 41 LI points through which irrigation potential will be created for additional 50,000 ha. The districts to be covered under the projects inaugurated on Saturday include Gajapati, Kalahandi, Nabarangpur, Bargarh, Balangir, Jharsuguda, Sambalpur, Boudh and Subarnapur.
Leader of Opposition Narasingh Mishra praised the Chief Minister for making efforts to create additional irrigation potential for the benefit of farmers. He, however, said field level officials should ensure that benefits of these schemes launched by the Government reached the farmers. He also requested the Chief Minister to take steps for increasing irrigation coverage in Balangir district which has only three per cent assured irrigation.
The Government has set a target to provide irrigation to 2.86 ha land in 23 districts of the State through 199 projects under the Parbati Giri plan. The Chief Minister announced that irrigation potential will be provided to additional one lakh ha land under the scheme through 80 more projects by March, 2019.
The Chief Minister interacted with farmers from different places during the programme. He also released a book containing facts related to the Parbati Giri Project.
Finance Minister Sashi Bhusan Behera, Agriculture Minister Pradip Maharathi, Food Supply and Consumer Welfare Minister Surya Narayan Patro, Water Resources Minister Niranjan Pujari and Chief Secretary AP Padhi were present.