Haryana to build community tanks for irrigation

Chandigarh, May 3 (UNI) To popularise drip and sprinkle irrigation system which helps in water conservation, the Haryana Government has come out with an innovative plan to construct community tanks to enable farmers to irrigate their horticultural crops through Micro Irrigation System.

A provision of Rs 25 crore has been made in the current financial year to give assistance to farmers for construction of these community tanks, Haryana Agriculture Minister Harmohinder Singh Chatha said today.

The construction of community tanks was linked with the Micro Irrigation Scheme and the tanks were being constructed under National Horticulture Mission, he said.

Under the scheme, 100 per cent assistance subject to maximum of Rs 10 lakh was being given to farmers for construction of each community tank, he added Mr Chatha said the state government was encouraging the farmers to adopt Micro Irrigation System, which included Drip and Sprinkle Irrigation system in a big way.

Keeping in view the benefits of Micro Irrigation System, a target of 11,180 hectares of area had been fixed under Micro Irrigation System for the current financial year out of which 3160 hectares would be brought under drip rrigation system and 8000 hectares area would be brought under sprinkle irrigation system.

He said a total cost of about Rs 25 crore was involved to achieve this target. An assistance of over Rs 12.41 crore by the Central government and Rs 2.37 crore by state government would be provided to beneficiary farmers Under the Micro Irrigation scheme, 40 per cent assistance was provided by the Centre and 10 per cent assistance by the state government to beneficiary farmers.

During 2006-07, an area of 2824 hectares had been brought under Micro Irrigation System out of which the 1068 hectares was under drip irrigation and 1756 hectares under sprinkle irrigation.

UNI