The National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) will provide funds for dredging an estimated 41,000 major tanks across the State in a phased manner. The plan has been mooted in the wake of the ‘kudimaramathu’ scheme currently being implemented in the State, said Nagoor Ali Jinnah, Chief General Manager, NABARD, Chennai.
The exact amount needed would be around ₹3,000 crore and the NABARD would contribute a lion’s share of the expenditure. The balance would be contributed by the State government, he said. The Public Works Department and Water Resource Department would identify the tanks in a phased manner, he told The Hindu here recently.
Mr. Jinnah also said that NABARD would nominate volunteers to ensure economic use of water in 16 drought-prone districts including Tiruchi. Called ‘Jal Doots’, the volunteers would impart training to the villagers in ensuring recycling of water, prevention of loss of water due to evaporation by using pipelines in agricultural fields and conservation of water bodies in rural areas. The volunteers would be nominated in a total of 6,500 villages across these districts, he said.
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Expressing concern over the exploitation of handloom weavers, Mr. Jinnah said that the NABARD has chalked out a special plan to float weavers’ producer companies on the lines of the farmers producer companies.
He said that each weaver producers companies would have a membership strength of at least 500 in every handloom cluster and the NABARD would extend all facilities including infrastructure development, marketing avenues and improvement in design to suit the current-day taste and need. “The idea is to check exploitation by master weavers or private business magnets,” he added.