Rs 1,800 crore groundwater programme a non-starter
A Rs 1,800 crore national programme for artificial recharge of groundwater through dug-wells was announced by finance minister P Chidambaram, in February 2007. It was to provide proper irrigation facilities to millions of farmers. But thanks to the delays on part of the state governments, the scheme is yet to take off.
With about 80 per cent of the groundwater stressed areas concentrated in Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu, the scheme envisages recharging 4.45 million irrigation dug-wells in these seven states.
But due to inaction by respective state governments, Rs 1,537 crore sanctioned under the scheme is still lying unused. The money has also been transferred to national bank for agricultural and rural development (nabard) for disbursement by the ministry of finance.D Elangovan, general manager, nabard, says, "As soon as the states submit their list of beneficiaries to ministry of water resources (mowr), this amount will be released to the farmers."
The scheme offers a 100 per cent subsidy to small farmers with 1-2 hectares (ha) of land and to marginal farmers (upto 1 ha). Other farmers get 50 per cent subsidy. The amount for the construction of the recharge structure is to be deposited in the savings bank accounts of the farmers. But as Elangovan points out, only about 70 per cent of farmers in the country have bank accounts. State governments must, therefore, find a way to reach the money to farmers who don't have a bank account.
Going by the guidelines circulated by mowr, the entire subsidy amount was to be released to the farmers by March 31 and installation of structures was to be completed by June this year. All these deadlines have already been missed.
In fact, none of the states could even come up with concrete proposals on the scheme at the May 16, meeting convened by the joint secretary, mowr. While Maharashtra and Gujarat proposed to submit their lists of beneficiaries by the end of July, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan plan to finalize the details by September.
| Who gets how much State wise allocation of funds | |
| Source Ministry of Water Resources, Government ofIndia, February 28, 2008 |