The Centre may consider scaling up the dedicated Long-Term Irrigation Fund announced in this year’s Budget beyond the initial corpus of ₹20,000 crore to help States expedite the completion of their pending irrigation projects and fight drought more effectively.

“If the response to the long-term infrastructure bonds to be floated by National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) is good, we will scale up the fund this year,” a senior Agriculture Ministry official told BusinessLine .

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced a separate corpus of ₹20,000 crore created through Nabard in this year’s Budget. The fund is for completion of 89 long-term and medium-term irrigation projects pending for many years, specifically targeting 23 short-listed ones. “In the meeting between the Prime Minister and the Chief Ministers of various drought-affected States this month, many pointed to the need of completing as many pending projects as possible and sought more resources. The Centre is now exploring the possibility of raising more funds through infrastructure bonds so that some of it could be handed over to States to enable them to participate in the process,” the official added.

Chief Ministers of drought-hit States including Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana have demanded more funds than what the Centre has agreed to release under the national and state disaster response funds to address their water crisis.

More than 330 million people have been severely affected in about 13 States due to drought and drought-like situation prevailing for the last two years. The Supreme Court, earlier this month, pulled up the Centre for not taking adequate action to mitigate distress in drought-affected States. “The Centre cannot hide behind the smokescreen of lack of funds,” Justice Madan B Lokur said in his judgment in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed by NGO Swaraj Abhiyan.

The Centre is also working with States for effective channelising of water as in many cases where dams exist the linkages for carrying water was missing. “We are working on establishing linkages through drips and sprinklers so that the same quantity of water can be used to irrigate more. In cases where canals are not completed, we are connecting it to fields with pipes which serves the dual purpose of preventing evaporation loss and also doesn’t encroach on land,” the official said.

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