Maharashtra approves Rs.1,000 Crore for irrigation projects

In a move to increase the water storage capacity of 50 on-going irrigation projects, the Maharashtra cabinet sanctioned Rs 1,000 crore for undertaking works in the river basins of Krishna, Godavari, Tapi.Irrigation officials said the entire allocation will be used to increase the water storage potential by 60 thousand million cubic metres (TMC) during 2008-09. Presently, the storage capacity in all the 50 irrigation projects is around 444 TMC. The single largest beneficiary of these additional funds would be the Maharashtra Krishna Valley Development Corporation (MKVDC) which would get Rs 375 crore. It is over and above the 2008-09 annual budget allocation to MKVDC for irrigation works undertaken by it in the eight districts of Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Solapur, Ahmednagar, Beed and Osmanabad.The Rs 375 crore would be spent on 29 major and medium irrigation works and it is expected that the water storage capacity would increase by 14 TMC by March-April 2009.The MKVDC, which has to create a storage potential of 585 TMC has till June 2007, said to have achieved 508 TMC of water. To facilitate completion of pending irrigation works the western Maharashtra, the government have been persuading the state governor to relax the fund allocation norms, which gave more weight-age in the fund disbursal to the dry regions of Vidarbha and Marathwada. The Rs 1,000 crore will be distributed as per the governor’s directives. The MKVDC will get Rs 375 crore, Vidarbha irrigation development corporation Rs 265 crore, Tapi irrigation development corporation Rs 150 crore, Godavari-Marathwada irrigation corporation Rs 110 crore and Rs 100 crore for Konkan irrigation corporation.The fund allocation would help create additional storage of 16 TMC water in Vidarbha cover four irrigation projects. In the water-starved Marathwada region, the irrigation department hopes to create additional 12 TMC storage on four major and medium projects while the Rs 100 crore to be spent in Konkan region will help build 5 TMC water storage. In Tapi river basin, the state expects to enhance the water storage by 11 TMC by spending Rs 150 crore on 8 irrigation projects. To ensure that the funds are utilised exclusively for creating storage capacity only, the state cabinet has decided to set up a committee under the additional chief secretary (planning) to monitor the implementation of the works taken up in this scheme.