In a move that aims to address the perennial irrigation water crisis affecting rural India, Ministry of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and NABARD signed an agreement to operationalise the Long Term Irrigation Fund (LTIF) to be instituted in NABARD as part of Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY).
The Fund, with an initial corpus of about Rs 20,000 crore, was announced in the Union Budget 2016-17 by Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley.
Corpus would be raised by way of budgetary resources and market borrowings to fund fast tracking of implementation of incomplete major & medium irrigation projects.
An historic MoA was signed to this effect. It is an arrangement between Ministry of Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation and NABARD to complete the 99 prioritized irrigation projects as part of the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY).
A phenomenal 76.03 lakh hectares of land is estimated to be brought under irrigation through 99 identified projects under this initiative which has a total estimated allocation of Rs. 77,595 crore.
The project which is spread over a period of four years between 2016-20 will have approximate Central and state Government shares of Rs. 31,342 crore and Rs.46,253 crore respectively to be entirely funded from the LTIF for Central Share and on demand basis in respect of respective state shares.