To conserve water and help farmers get better yield, the State government has decided to offer sugarcane growers incentives and loans to shift to drip irrigation. Minister for Water Resources M.B. Patil told presspersons here on Tuesday that the growers would be told to switch to drip irrigation from January.
The Rs. 4,500-crore project, to be implemented in the next three years, would help conserve 180 tmcft of water annually in the State, he said. There would be a tripartite agreement between the State government, sugarcane growers and sugar factory owners. With an estimated Rs. 40,000 required to set up a good quality drip irrigation system, the Department had decided to offer a subsidy of Rs. 10,000 and the sugar factories would give an incentive of Rs. 5,000.
The Minister said that though sugarcane was being grown on 4.5 lakh hectares of land in the State now, the permissible limit, henceforth, would be 40,000 hectares. “The remaining crop cultivated on 4.1 lakh hectares is not permissible. By shifting to drip irrigation, farmers who are growing sugarcane on the 4.1 lakh hectares can get their crop regularised,” the Minister said.
