Agri boost: schemes for irrigation, reforms in mandi get CCEA nod

The government plans to spend ₹50,000 crore in five years (2015-16 to 2019-20) to provide irrigation facility to all farm lands. This will be part of new scheme ‘Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana,’ approved by the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on Wednesday.

Announcing the decisions here on Thursday, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that spending will start from this year itself. In fact, ₹5,300 crore has been provided for the current fiscal. At present, 45 per cent of total farm lands are irrigated. Agriculture Secretary Siraj Hussain said that effort would be to bring in six lakh hectares under irrigation, besides providing drip irrigation facility in 5 lakh hectares during the current fiscal.

The scheme aims to achieve convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level, expand cultivable area under assured irrigation (

Har Khet ko pani ), improve on-farm water use efficiency to reduce wastage of water, enhance the adoption of precision-irrigation and other water saving technologies (more crop per drop), enhance recharge of aquifers and introduce sustainable water conservation practices by exploring the feasibility of reusing treated municipal based water for peri-urban agriculture and attract greater private investment in precision irrigation systems.

As a precursor to establishing a national market for agricultural produce, the CCEA also approved a scheme which will facilitate setting up a common market at the State level.

This will end various mandis in one State and farmers will have flexibility to sell their produce according to their convenience. Jaitley said that the scheme would cover all the 585 mandis in the country.

“There will be one licence for the entire State beside single point levy. Electronic auctions will be used for discovery of prices,” he said while adding that most of the States have agreed on the scheme.

The scheme is Central Sector Scheme for Promotion of National Agricultural Market through Agri-Tech Infrastructure Fund (ATIF).

An amount of ₹200 crore has been earmarked for the scheme from 2015-16 to 2017-18.

This includes provision for supplying software free of cost by DAC to the States and Union Territories (UTs) and for the cost of related hardware/infrastructure to be subsidised by the government up to ₹30 lakh per Mandi (other than for private mandis).

The Centre will meet expenses on software and its customisation for the States and provide it free of cost to the States and UTs.

It will also give grant as one time fixed cost subject to the ceiling of ₹30 lakh per mandi for related equipment or infrastructure in the 585 regulated mandis, for installation of the e-market platform.