Zee Media Bureau
New Delhi: The Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY) will have an outlay of Rs 50,000 crore over a period of five years (2015-16 to 2019-20), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said on Thursday.
The allocation for the current financial year is Rs 5,300 crore.
The programme will be supervised and monitored at the national level by an Inter-Ministerial National Steering Committee (NSC) under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister with Union Ministers of all concerned Ministries.
In order to reduce farm sector's dependence on monsoon, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a central scheme for providing irrigation facility to every village by converging the ongoing schemes being implemented by various ministries.
The new scheme assumes importance as 65 percent of the total 142 million hectare of cultivable farm land in the country is still not covered by irrigation.
The PMKSY aims to ensure access to some means of protective irrigation to all agricultural farms in the country, to produce 'per drop more crop', thus bringing much desired rural prosperity.
The scheme, with a budget allocation of Rs 1,000 crore for this fiscal, proposes to provide flexibility and autonomy to states in the process of planning and executing projects for ensuring water to every farm.
It would also ensure that district and state irrigation plans get prepared on the basis of agro-climatic conditions and sources of availability of water in that region.
That apart, PMKSY seeks to promote extension activities relating to 'on farm water management and crop alignment' for farmers and grass root level field functionaries.
The state agriculture department would be the nodal agency for implementation of PMKSY projects, while there would also be an inter-ministerial National Steering Committee (NSC) for periodic review of the same.
The PMKSY intends to focus on 'end-to-end solution' in irrigation supply chain by implementing the new programme in a "project mode" with decentralised state-level planning and execution.
A number of central schemes are operational to augment irrigation coverage. However, the goal of bringing irrigation water to every village farm has still been far from reality, primarily due to fragmented approach followed by existing schemes.
PMKSY funds would be given to states as 75 percent grant by the central government and the remaining 25 percent share is to be borne by the state government.
For north-eastern region and hilly states, the funding pattern would be 90:10.
With PTI Inputs
