Govt to spend Rs50,000 cr on integrated scheme for agriculture in 5 years

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, today gave its approval to a new integrated agriculture development scheme - the `Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana' (PMKSY) – with an outlay of Rs50,000 crore to be spent over a period of five years (2015-16 to 2019-20).

The allocation for the scheme for the current financial year has been fixed at Rs5,300 crore.

The PMKSY aims to achieve convergence of investments in irrigation at the field level, expand cultivable area under assured irrigation (har khet ko pani   or water to every field), 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 system.

The scheme also aims at bringing concerned ministries / departments / agencies / research and financial institutions engaged in creation / use / recycling / potential recycling of water, brought under a common platform, so that a comprehensive and holistic view of the entire "water cycle" is taken into account and proper water budgeting is done for all sectors, namely, household, agriculture and industries.

The programme architecture of PMKSY aims at a 'decentralised state level planning and execution' structure, in order to allow states to draw up a district irrigation plan (DIP) and a state irrigation plan (SIP).

DIP will have holistic developmental perspective of the district outlining medium to long-term developmental plans integrating three components namely, water sources, distribution network and water use application of the district to be prepared at two levels - the block and the district. All structures created under the schemes will be geo-tagged.

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. 

A National Executive Committee (NEC) will be constituted under the chairmanship of the vice chairman, NITI Aayog to oversee programme implementation, allocation of resources, inter ministerial coordination, monitoring and performance assessment, addressing administrative issues etc.

At the state level, the scheme is to be administered by a state level sanctioning committee (SLSC) to be chaired by the chief secretary of the respective states.

The committee will have all authority to sanction the project and also monitor the progress of the scheme. At the district level there shall be a district level implementation committee for ensuring last mile coordination a the field level.

It is expected that PMKSY will provide convergence to existing schemes of water management, thus bringing efficiency to the use of water.