While Maharashtra is reeling under a deep agrarian crisis that has lead to a spurt in farmer suicides, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has admitted that the irrigation capacity of the state could not

While Maharashtra is reeling under a deep agrarian crisis that has lead to a spurt in farmer suicides, chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has admitted that the irrigation capacity of the state could not be increased more than 50 per cent despite utilising all the potential. He was speaking in the state Assembly last week.

At present, the cultivated area under irrigation of the state is only 16.8 per cent, which is far less than the national average of 48 per cent.

Referring to the situation, the chief minister said that a major problem of the state was non-irrigated land. “Even if we utilise all the potential, 50 per cent of the our land will remain non-irrigated. This is a major concern for our agrarian sector and also one of the significant reasons for farmer suicides,” Mr Fadnavis stated on the floor of the House.

He said that the problem would not be solved by distribution of financial packages to farmers. Instead, this can be successfully dealt with by decentralisation of structures and giving more security to farmers.

“To make this possible, the state government has launched ‘Jalyukt Shivar Yojana’ by clubbing 14 existing schemes. It was essential to take an integrated approach to the crisis and thus the scheme has been brought out by the government,” the chief minister said.

He further said that the government has made available `1,000 crore in addition to the budgetary provisions of 14 schemes. Of this, `600 crore has already been disbursed and a provision of `400 crore would be made available in the coming budget.

The government has taken up 6,000 villages this year to make them drought-free. Likewise, every year 5,000 villages would be selected for the cause and by 2019, entire Maharashtra would be made drought-free, Mr Fadnavis said.

The chief minister also commented on irrigation scam unearthed during the regime of Congress and NCP coalition government. “Despite spending thousands of crores 86 per cent of the farm land of Maharashtra is still non-irrigated,” he commented.