The Government of India would complete 99 irrigation projects by December 2020, Ashok Dalwai, Chief Executive Officer, National Rainfed Area Authority, Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, told journalists on Monday, on the sidelines of a function held at Tamil Nadu Agricultural University.
Under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefits Programme, the Ministry of Water Resources had created a corpus with which the government would complete the major and medium irrigation projects to increase irrigated area. This was expected to bring 7.6 million ha under irrigated area.
As part of its focus on developing agriculture in rainfed areas, the government had focussed on increasing the minimum support price for pulses, millets and oilseeds, aimed at benefiting the farmers in the area.
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It had also drawn a roadmap for increasing pulses, millets and oilseeds production and asking the Food and Agriculture Organisation to declare a year as the Year of Millets was in the offing, Mr. Dalwai said and added that the Organisation had accorded in-principle approval for the same.
The setting up of the National Rainfed Area Authority had helped the government focus on the area in that though the government had fixed bringing seven lakh ha under micro-irrigation, it was able to bring 1.30 million ha. This was under the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojna, he added.