BHUBANESWAR: The state government has come up with a comprehensive guideline for diversion of irrigated agricultural land for industrial purpose, asking the industry houses to compensate the ayacut loss through compensatory irrigation.
Issuing the guideline, the Water Resources department has pointed out that the state government has been careful in avoiding setting up of industries on irrigated agricultural land. However, sometimes it gets difficult for an industry to avoid such irrigation command area completely during the acquisition.
In some cases, some industries have already procured such land and have made investments in it. Accordingly, the government has come up with a compensatory mechanism, similar to compensatory afforestation, to create alternative irrigation potential for the irrigated land required to be diverted to industrial houses, the department stated.
“In cases where a portion of irrigated command area is required to be diverted for industrialisation under unavoidable circumstances, the industry concerned will have to make up for the loss of command area by way of creating compensatory irrigation,” the notification stated.
As per the guideline, compensatory irrigation will have to be created by the industry concerned in the same project area where the ayacut is lost, by way of extension of a canal system or through pumped irrigation system. In case it is not possible, the industry will have to bear the cost of creating the required ayacut through lift irrigation by Odisha Lift Irrigation Corporation in the same block or district. If that too is not feasible, the lift irrigation has to be created in a neighbouring district.
In case, it is not possible to provide irrigation to downstream ayacut even after considering diversion of canal or pumping system, the industry will have to compensate for the loss of such irrigation at twice the rate of the downstream ayacut lost.
As creation of compensatory irrigation usually takes a period of about three years, the guideline also stated that the project proponent will be charged an additional 25 per cent on the latest normative cost, as calculated by the irrigation authorities concerned, to adjust the cost of escalation.