- An irrigation potential of 85.03 lakh ha is reported to have been created under the AIBP by states from major / medium /minor irrigation projects till March 2013. The
- Command Area Development Programme has also been amalgamated with the AIBP to reduce the gap between irrigation potential that has been created and that is utilized. Indian agriculture is still heavily rainfall dependent with just 35% of total arable area being irrigated, and distribution of irrigation across states is highly skewed.
- The following major initiatives were taken in the fertilizer policy of the government in 2014- 15: (i) Notification of the Modified New Pricing Scheme (NPS-III) for existing urea units on 2 April 2014 in order to address the issue of underrecoveries of the existing urea units on account of freezing of fixed cost at the 2002-03 level.(ii) Further, the government had notified the New Investment Policy 2012 on 2 January 2013 to facilitate fresh investment in the urea sector to make India self-sufficient.
- The amendment to New Investment Policy – 2012 has been notified by the Department of Fertilizers on 7 October 2014. The following measures have been taken for improving agricultural credit flow and bringing down the rate of interest on farm loans:
- Agricultural credit flow target for 2013-14 was fixed at ` 7,00,000 crore and achievement was ` 7,30,765 crore (Provisional), as against ` 6,07,375 crore in 2012-13.
- Farmers have been availing of crop loans up to a principal amount of ` 3,00,000 at 7% rate of interest. The effective rate of interest for farmers who promptly repay their loans is 4% per annum during 2014-15.
- In order to discourage distress sale of crops by farmers, the benefit of interest subvention has been made available to small and marginal farmers having Kisan Credit Cards for a further period of up to six months (post- harvest) against negotiable warehouse receipts (NWRs) at the same rate as available to crop loan. Other farmers have been granted post-harvest loans against NWRs at the commercial rates.
- From 2014-15, in order to provide relief to farmers on occurrence of natural calamities, interest subvention of 2% will continued to be available to banks for the first year on the restructured loan amount on account of natural calamities and such restructured loans will attract normal rate of interest from the second year onwards as per the policy laid down by RBI.
